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[
"Pete Maravich",
"Later life and death",
"who is pete maravich",
"I don't know.",
"when did he die",
"On January 5, 1988,",
"where did he die",
"at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California,",
"how did he die",
"collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40",
"what was he doing when he died",
"playing in a pickup basketball game"
]
| C_7a47529a4d6242489384cc97e06de9d6_1 | how did his family take his death | 6 | How did Pete Maravich family take his death? | Pete Maravich | After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics. Eventually, he embraced evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player." On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great. I just feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect. Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Peter Press Maravich (; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), known by his nickname Pistol Pete, was an American professional basketball player. Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and raised in the Carolinas. Maravich starred in college with the LSU Tigers while playing for his father, head coach Press Maravich. He is the all-time leading NCAA Division I scorer with 3,667 points scored and an average of 44.2 points per game. All of his accomplishments were achieved before the adoption of the three-point line and shot clock, and despite being unable to play varsity as a freshman under then-NCAA rules. He played for three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams until injuries forced his retirement in 1980 following a 10-year professional career.
One of the youngest players ever inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Maravich was considered to be one of the greatest creative offensive talents ever and one of the best ball handlers of all time. He died suddenly at age 40 during a pick-up game in 1988 as a consequence of an undetected heart defect.
Early life
Maravich was born to Peter "Press" Maravich (1915–1987) and Helen Gravor Maravich (1925–1974) in Aliquippa, a steel town in Beaver County in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Maravich amazed his family and friends with his basketball abilities from an early age. He enjoyed a close but demanding father-son relationship that motivated him toward achievement and fame in the sport. Maravich's father was the son of Serbian immigrants and a professional player–turned-coach. He showed him the fundamentals starting when he was seven years old. Obsessively, Maravich spent hours practicing ball control tricks, passes, head fakes, and long-range shots.
Maravich played high school varsity ball at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, a year before being old enough to attend the school. While at Daniel from 1961 to 1963, Maravich participated in the school's first-ever game against a team from an all-black school. In 1963 his father departed from his position as head basketball coach at Clemson University and joined the coaching staff at North Carolina State University. The Maravich family's subsequent move to Raleigh, North Carolina, allowed Maravich to attend Needham B. Broughton High School. His high school years also saw the birth of his famous moniker. From his habit of shooting the ball from his side, as if holding a revolver, Maravich became known as "Pistol" Pete Maravich. He graduated from Needham B. Broughton High School in 1965 and then attended Edwards Military Institute, where he averaged 33 points per game. Maravich never liked school and did not like Edwards Military Institute. It was known that Press Maravich was extremely protective of Maravich and would guard against any issue that might come up during his adolescence. Press threatened to shoot Maravich with a 45 caliber pistol if he drank or got into trouble. Maravich was 6 feet 4 inches in high school and was getting ready to play in college when his father took a coaching position at Louisiana State University.
College career
At that time NCAA rules prohibited first-year students from playing at varsity level, which forced Maravich to play on the freshman team. In his first game, Maravich put up 50 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists against Southeastern Louisiana College.
In only three years playing on the varsity team (and under his father's coaching) at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points—1,138 of those in 1967–68, 1,148 in 1968–69, and 1,381 in 1969–70—while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game, respectively. For his collegiate career, the 6'5" (1.96 m) guard averaged 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring for each of his three seasons.
Maravich's long-standing collegiate scoring record is particularly notable when three factors are taken into account:
First, because of the NCAA rules that prohibited him from taking part in varsity competition during his first year as a student, Maravich was prevented from adding to his career record for a full quarter of his time at LSU. During this first year, Maravich scored 741 points in freshman competition.
Second, Maravich played before the advent of the three-point line. This significant difference has raised speculation regarding just how much higher his records would be, given his long-range shooting ability and how such a component might have altered his play. Writing for ESPN.com, Bob Carter stated, "Though Maravich played before [...] the 3-point shot was established, he loved gunning from long range." It has been reported that former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game. And 12 Three Pointer per game.
Third, the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.)
More than 50 years later, however, many of his NCAA and LSU records still stand. Maravich was a three-time All-American. Though he never appeared in the NCAA tournament, Maravich played a key role in turning around a lackluster program that had posted a 3–20 record in the season prior to his arrival. Maravich finished his college career in the 1970 National Invitation Tournament, where LSU finished fourth.
NCAA career statistics
Freshman
At this time, freshmen did not play on the varsity team and these stats do not count in the NCAA record books.
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1966–67
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 19 || 19 || ... || .452 || ... || .833 || 10.4 || ... || ... || ... || 43.6
Varsity
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1967–68
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .423 || ... || .811 || 7.5 || 4.0 || ... || ... || 43.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1968–69
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .444 || ... || .746 || 6.5 || 4.9 || ... || ... || 44.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1969–70
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 31 || 31 || ... || .447 || ... || .773 || 5.3 || 6.2 || ... || ... || 44.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" colspan=2|Career
| 83 || 83 || ... || .438 || ... || .775 || 6.5 || 5.1 || ... || ... || 44.2
Professional career
Atlanta Hawks
The Atlanta Hawks selected Maravich with the third pick in the first round of the 1970 NBA draft, where he played for coach Richie Guerin. He was not a natural fit in Atlanta, as the Hawks already boasted a top-notch scorer at the guard position in Lou Hudson. In fact, Maravich's flamboyant style stood in stark contrast to the conservative play of Hudson and star center Walt Bellamy. And it did not help that many of the veteran players resented the $1.9 million contract that Maravich received from the team—a very large salary at that time.
Maravich appeared in 81 games and averaged 23.2 points per contest—good enough to earn NBA All-Rookie Team honors. And he managed to blend his style with his teammates, so much so that Hudson set a career high by scoring 26.8 points per game. But the team stumbled to a 36–46 record—12 wins fewer than in the previous season. Still, the Hawks qualified for the playoffs, where they lost to the New York Knicks in the first round.
Maravich struggled somewhat during his second season. His scoring average dipped to 19.3 points per game, and the Hawks finished with another disappointing 36–46 record. Once again they qualified for the playoffs, and once again they were eliminated in the first round. However, Atlanta fought hard against the Boston Celtics, with Maravich averaging 27.7 points in the series.
Maravich erupted in his third season, averaging 26.1 points (5th in the NBA) and dishing out 6.9 assists per game (6th in the NBA). With 2,063 points, he combined with Hudson (2,029 points) to become only the second set of teammates in league history to each score over 2,000 points in a single season. The Hawks soared to a 46–36 record, but again bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. However, the season was good enough to earn Maravich his first-ever appearance in the NBA All-Star Game, and also All-NBA Second Team honors.
The following season (1973–74) was his best yet—at least in terms of individual accomplishments. Maravich posted 27.7 points per game—second in the league behind Bob McAdoo—and earned his second appearance in the All-Star Game. However, Atlanta sank to a disappointing 35–47 record and missed the postseason entirely.
New Orleans Jazz
In the summer of 1974, an expansion franchise was preparing for its first season of competition in the NBA. The New Orleans Jazz were looking for something or someone to generate excitement among their new basketball fans. With his exciting style of play, Maravich was seen as the perfect man for the job. Additionally, he was already a celebrity in the state due to his accomplishments at LSU. To acquire Maravich, the Jazz traded two players and four draft picks to Atlanta.
The expansion team struggled mightily in its first season. Maravich managed to score 21.5 points per game, but shot a career-worst 41.9 percent from the floor. The Jazz posted a 23–59 record, worst in the NBA.
Jazz management did its best to give Maravich a better supporting cast. The team posted a 38–44 record in its second season (1975–76) but did not qualify for postseason play, despite the dramatic improvement. Maravich struggled with injuries that limited him to just 62 games that season, but he averaged 25.9 points per contest (third behind McAdoo and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and continued his crowd-pleasing antics. He was elected to the All-NBA First Team that year.
The following season (1976–77) was his most productive in the NBA. He led the league in scoring with an average of 31.1 points per game. He scored 40 points or more in 13 games, and 50 or more in 4 games. His 68-point masterpiece against the Knicks was at the time the most points ever scored by a guard in a single game, and only two players at any position had ever scored more: Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Baylor was head coach of the Jazz at that time.
Maravich earned his third all-star game appearance and was honored as All-NBA First Team for the second consecutive season.
The following season, injuries to both knees forced him to miss 32 games during the 1977–78 season. Despite being robbed of some quickness and athleticism, he still managed to score 27.0 points per game, and he also added 6.7 assists per contest, his highest average as a member of the Jazz. Many of those assists went to new teammate Truck Robinson, who had joined the franchise as a free agent during the off-season. In his first year in New Orleans, he averaged 22.7 points and a league-best 15.7 rebounds per game. His presence prevented opponents from focusing their defensive efforts entirely on Maravich, and it lifted the Jazz to a 39–43 record—just short of making the club's first-ever appearance in the playoffs.
Knee problems plagued Maravich for the rest of his career. He played in just 49 games during the 1978–79 season. He scored 22.6 points per game that season and earned his fifth and final All-Star appearance. But his scoring and passing abilities were severely impaired. The team struggled on the court, and faced serious financial trouble as well. Management became desperate to make some changes. The Jazz traded Robinson to the Phoenix Suns, receiving draft picks and some cash in return. However, in 1979, team owner Sam Battistone moved the Jazz to Salt Lake City.
Final season
The Utah Jazz began play in the 1979–80 season. Maravich moved with the team to Salt Lake City, but his knee problems were worse than ever. He appeared in 17 games early in the season, but his injuries prevented him from practicing much, and new coach Tom Nissalke had a strict rule that players who didn't practice were not allowed to play in games. Thus, Maravich was parked on the bench for 24 straight games, much to the dismay of Utah fans and to Maravich himself. During that time, Adrian Dantley emerged as the team's franchise player.
The Jazz placed Maravich on waivers in January 1980. He signed with the Celtics, the top team in the league that year, led by rookie superstar Larry Bird. Maravich adjusted to a new role as part-time contributor, giving Boston a "hired gun" off the bench. He helped the team post a 61–21 record in the regular season, best in the league. And, for the first time since his early career in Atlanta, Maravich was able to participate in the NBA playoffs. He appeared in nine games during that postseason, but the Celtics were upended by Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals, four games to one.
Realizing that his knee problems would never go away, Maravich retired at the end of that season. The NBA instituted the 3-point shot just in time for Maravich's last season in the league. He had always been famous for his long-range shooting, and his final year provided an official statistical gauge of his abilities. Between his limited playing time in Utah and Boston, he made 10 of 15 3-point shots, giving him a career 66.7% completion rate behind the arc.
During his ten-year career in the NBA, Maravich played in 658 games, averaging 24.2 points and 5.4 assists per contest. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and his No. 7 jersey has been retired by both the Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans, as well as his No. 44 jersey by the Atlanta Hawks.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1970–71
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 81 || ... || 36.1 || .458 || ... || .800 || 3.7 || 4.4 || ... || ... || 23.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971–72
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 66 || ... || 34.9 || .427 || ... || .811 || 3.9 || 6.0 || ... || ... || 19.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972–73
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 79 || ... || 39.1 || .441 || ... || .800 || 4.4 || 6.9 || ... || ... || 26.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973–74
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 76 || ... || 38.2 || .457 || ... || .826 || 4.9 || 5.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1974–75
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 79 || ... || 36.1 || .419 || ... || .811 || 5.3 || 6.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 21.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1975–76
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 62 || ... || 38.3 || .459|| ... || .811 || 4.8 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .4 || 25.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1976–77
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 73 || ... || 41.7 || .433 || ... || .835 || 5.1 || 5.4 || 1.2 || .3 ||style="background:#cfecec;"| 31.1*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1977–78
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 50 || ... || 40.8 || .444 || ... || .870 || 3.6 || 6.7 || 2.0 || .2 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1978–79
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 49 || ... || 37.2 || .421 || ... || .841 || 2.5 || 5.0 || 1.2 || .4 || 22.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Utah
| 17 || ... || 30.7 || .412 || .636 || .820 || 2.4 || 3.2 || .9 || .2 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 26 || 4 || 17.0 || .494 || .750 ||.909 || 1.5 || 1.1 || .3 || .1 || 11.5
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| Career
| 658 || ... || 37.0 || .441 || .667 || .820 || 4.2 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .3 || 24.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| All-Star
| 4 || 4 || 19.8 || .409 || ... || .778 || 2.0 || 3.8 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 10.8
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 5 || ... || 39.8 || .377 || ... || .692 || 5.2 || 4.8 || ... || ... || 22.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 36.5 || .446 || ... || .817 || 5.3 || 4.7 || ... || ... || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 39.0 || .419 || ... || .794 || 4.8 || 6.7 || ... || ... || 26.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1980
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 9 || ... || 11.6 || .490 || .333 || .667 || .9 || .7 || .3 || .0 || 6.0
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2|Career
| 26 || ... || 29.1 || .423 || .333 || .784 || 3.6 || 3.8 || ... || ... || 18.7
|-
Later life and death
After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics, adopting a vegetarian diet in 1982. Eventually, he became a born-again Christian, embracing evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves Him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player."
On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect.
Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had died of suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Legacy
Maravich was survived by his wife Jackie and his sons Jaeson, who was 8 years old at the time of his death, and Josh, aged 5. Only the previous year, Maravich had taken Jaeson to the 1987 NBA All-Star Game in Seattle, Washington, and introduced him to Michael Jordan.
Since Maravich's children were very young when he died, Jackie Maravich initially shielded them from unwanted media attention, not even allowing Jaeson and Josh to attend their father's funeral. However, a proclivity to basketball seemed to be an inherited trait. During a 2003 interview, Jaeson told USA Today that, when he was still only a toddler, "My dad passed me a (Nerf) basketball, and I've been hooked ever since ... My dad said I shot and missed, and I got mad and I kept shooting. He said his dad told him he did the same thing."
Despite some setbacks coping with their father's death and without the benefit that his tutelage might have provided, both sons eventually were inspired to play high school and collegiate basketball—Josh at his father's alma mater, LSU.
On June 27, 2014, Governor Bobby Jindal proposed that LSU erect a statue of Maravich outside the Assembly Center, which already bore the basketball star's name. Former coach Dale Brown opposed such a monument, but Maravich's widow, Jackie McLachlan, said that she had been promised a statue after the passing of her husband. McLachlan said that she has noticed how fans struggle to get the Maravich name on the Assembly Center into a camera frame.
In February 2016, the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame Committee unanimously approved a proposal that a statue honoring Maravich be installed on the campus.
A street in Belgrade, Serbia, is named after Pete Maravich.
Memorabilia
Maravich's untimely death and mystique have made memorabilia associated with him among the most highly prized of any basketball collectibles. Game-used Maravich jerseys bring more money at auction than similar items from anybody other than George Mikan, with the most common items selling for $10,000 and up and a game-used LSU jersey selling for $94,300 in a 2001 Grey Flannel auction. The signed game ball from his career-high 68-point night on February 25, 1977, sold for $131,450 in a 2009 Heritage auction.
Honors, books, films and music
In 1987, roughly a year before his death, Maravich co-authored an award-winning (Gold Medallion) autobiography with Darrel Campbell titled Heir to a Dream that devoted much focus to his life after retirement from basketball and his later devotion to Christianity.
In 1987, Maravich and Darrel Campbell produced the four-episode basketball instructional video series Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball.
In 1988, Frank Schroeder and Darrel Campbell produced the documentary based on Pete Maravich's college career titled, Maravich Memories: The LSU Years.
After Maravich's death, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer signed a proclamation officially renaming the LSU home court the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
In 1991, a biographical film written and produced by Darrel Campbell dramatizing his 8th-grade season entitled The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend was released.
In 1996, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History by a panel made up of NBA historians, players, and coaches. He was the only deceased player on the list. At the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland, he was represented by his two sons at halftime.
In 2001, a comprehensive 90-minute documentary film debuted on CBS entitled Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.
In 2005, ESPNU named Maravich the greatest college basketball player of all time.
In 2007, two biographies of Maravich were released: Maravich by Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill and Pistol by Mark Kriegel. Also in 2007, to promote Mark Kriegel's book "Pistol", Fox Sports conducted a contest to find "Pete Maravich's Biggest Fan". The winner was Scott Pollack of Sunrise, FL.
In 2021, he was named one of the members of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team by a panel made up of NBA historians, players and coaches. He was one of the deceased players on the list.
In 1970, during his LSU days, Acapulco Music/The Panama Limited released "The Ballad of Pete Maravich by Bob Tinney and Woody Jenkins.
The Ziggens, a band from Southern California, wrote a song about Maravich entitled "Pistol Pete".
Collegiate awards
The Sporting News College Player of the Year (1970)
USBWA College Player of the Year (1969, 1970)
Naismith Award Winner (1970)
Helms Foundation Player of the Year (1970)
UPI Player of the Year (1970)
Sporting News Player of the Year (1970)
AP College Player of the Year (1970)
The Sporting News All-America First Team (1968, 1969, 1970)
Three-time AP and UPI First-Team All-America (1968, 1969, 1970)
Led the NCAA Division I in scoring with 43.8 ppg (1968); 44.2 (1969) and 44.5 ppg (1970)
Averaged 43.6 ppg on the LSU freshman team (1967)
Scored a career-high 69 points vs. Alabama (); 66 vs. Tulane (); 64 vs. Kentucky (); 61 vs. Vanderbilt ()
Holds LSU records for most field goals made (26) and attempted (57) in a game against Vanderbilt on
All-Southeastern Conference (1968, 1969, 1970)
#23 Jersey retired by LSU (2007)
In 1970, Maravich led LSU to a 20–8 record and a fourth-place finish in the National Invitation Tournament
Collegiate records
Points, career: 3,667 (three seasons)
Highest scoring average, points per game, career: 44.2 (3,667 points/83 games)
Points, season: 1,381 (1970)
Highest scoring average, points per game, season: 44.5 (1,381/31) (1970)
Games scoring 50 or more points, career: 28
Games scoring 50 or more points, season: 10 (1970)
Field goals made, career: 1,387
Field goals made, season: 522 (1970)
Field goal attempts, career: 3,166
Field goal attempts, season: 1,168 (1970)
Free throws made, game: 30 (in 31 attempts), vs. Oregon State,
Tied by Ben Woodside, North Dakota State, on
NBA awards
NBA All-Rookie Team
All-NBA First Team (1976, 1977)
All-NBA Second Team (1973, 1978)
Five-time NBA All-Star (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979)
Led the league in scoring (31.1 ppg) in 1977, his career best
Scored a career-high 68 points against the New York Knicks on February 25, 1977
#7 jersey retired by the Utah Jazz (1985)
#7 jersey retired by the Superdome (1988)
NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team (1996)
NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021)
#7 jersey retired by the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) (2002), even though he never played for them—one of only four players to have a number retired by a team they did not play for; Maravich did play professionally for the New Orleans Jazz, however, and has remained a greatly admired figure amongst New Orleans sports fans ever since.
#44 jersey retired by the Atlanta Hawks (2017)
NBA records
Free throws made, quarter: 14, Pete Maravich, third quarter, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Broken by Vince Carter on
Free throw attempts, quarter: 16, Pete Maravich, second quarter, Atlanta Hawks at Chicago Bulls,
Broken by Ben Wallace on
Second pair of teammates in NBA history to score 2,000 or more points in a season: 2, Atlanta Hawks ()
Maravich: 2,063
Lou Hudson: 2,029
Third pair of teammates in NBA history to score 40 or more points in the same game: New Orleans Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets,
Maravich: 45
Nate Williams: 41
David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets also scored 40 points in this game.
Ranks 4th in NBA history – Free throws made, none missed, game: 18–18, Pete Maravich, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Ranks 5th in NBA history – Free throws made, game: 23, Pete Maravich, New Orleans Jazz vs. New York Knicks, (2 OT)
See also
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 60 or more points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball season scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual minutes leaders
Further reading
Campbell, Darrel (2019). Hero & Friend: My Days with Pistol Pete. Percussion Films. .
Brown, Danny (2008). Shooting the Pistol: Courtside Photographs of Pete Maravich at LSU. Louisiana State University Press
References
External links
NBA Historical Bio
ESPN bio
Pete Maravich's Greatest Achievement
‘68 All College MVP - 4 Days with Pistol Pete
Pete Maravich Bio LSU Tigers Athletics
1947 births
1988 deaths
All-American college men's basketball players
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American people of Serbian descent
Atlanta Hawks draft picks
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Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
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Needham B. Broughton High School alumni
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Basketball players from Raleigh, North Carolina
Utah Jazz players | false | [
"Sahasrabahu is a legendary warrior in Indian history. According to legend, he was a contemporary of Ravana. He fought many fights and won all of them except one with Parashuram who killed all the Kshatriya Kings to take revenge of his parents' death to save the Brahmin society from exploitation of Kshatriyas.\n\nSahasrabahu is also known as Kartavirya Arjuna. He got a boon from Lord Dattatreya to be empowered with the power of 1000 arms. In his initial life he did work for development of society but later on he became arrogant and started misusing his power. He destroyed ashrams and exploited Brahmins. He also killed Rishi Jamadagni who was the father of Parashuram. To avenge his father's death, Parashuram killed Sahasrabahu.\n\nSpelling confusion\nSahasrais the correct prefix that means \"a thousand\", not SahasTra. However, it is invariably misspelled as the latter. Notice how the same prefix is spelled when referring to the crown chakra: \"Sahasrara Chakra\" or when it occurs in family names (example: Sahasrabuddhe) without a T. Also see Sahasralinga. The confusion arises because the Devanagari letter \"sa\" (स) merges with \"ra\" (र) to make \"sra\" (स्र), which looks like \"stra\" (स्त्र).\n\nReferences\n\nCharacters in Hindu mythology",
"\"For Island Fires and Family\" is a song by Irish singer-songwriter and musician Dermot Kennedy. It was released as a single on 4 January 2019. The song features on his compilation album Dermot Kennedy. The song peaked at number 36 on the Irish Singles Chart.\n\nBackground\nThe song has been a fan favourite. Kennedy tweeted, \"I wanted to start the new year by bringing together all the songs you've been singing back to me in one collection. As well as that, right now I want to share 'For Island Fires and Family' with you. This song is hugely important to me, and I've been so excited to release it.\"\n\nKennedy disclosed in an interview the meaning of the popular lyric, “Now when I’m face to face with death I’ll grab his throat and ask him, ‘How does it hurt?’.” He states that loss is inevitable. No matter the circumstance and no matter the quality of life that is lived, nothing gets by death. In this song, Kennedy wanted to take control of that notion, and in reverse, take control of death.\n\nMusic video\nA music video to accompany the release of \"For Island Fires and Family\" was first released onto YouTube on 10 January 2019.\n\nPersonnel\nCredits adapted from Tidal.\n Carey Willetts – producer, associated performer, bass, drum programming, engineer, mixer, piano, studio personnel, synthesizer\n Dermot Kennedy – composer, lyricist, acoustic guitar, associated performer\n Amy Jane Hosken – associated performer, viola, violin\n Chris Gehringer – mastering engineer, studio personnel\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2019 songs\n2019 singles\nDermot Kennedy songs\nSongs written by Dermot Kennedy"
]
|
[
"Pete Maravich",
"Later life and death",
"who is pete maravich",
"I don't know.",
"when did he die",
"On January 5, 1988,",
"where did he die",
"at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California,",
"how did he die",
"collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40",
"what was he doing when he died",
"playing in a pickup basketball game",
"how did his family take his death",
"I don't know."
]
| C_7a47529a4d6242489384cc97e06de9d6_1 | how was life before death | 7 | How was life before Pete Maravich's death? | Pete Maravich | After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics. Eventually, he embraced evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player." On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great. I just feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect. Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. CANNOTANSWER | Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". | Peter Press Maravich (; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), known by his nickname Pistol Pete, was an American professional basketball player. Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and raised in the Carolinas. Maravich starred in college with the LSU Tigers while playing for his father, head coach Press Maravich. He is the all-time leading NCAA Division I scorer with 3,667 points scored and an average of 44.2 points per game. All of his accomplishments were achieved before the adoption of the three-point line and shot clock, and despite being unable to play varsity as a freshman under then-NCAA rules. He played for three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams until injuries forced his retirement in 1980 following a 10-year professional career.
One of the youngest players ever inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Maravich was considered to be one of the greatest creative offensive talents ever and one of the best ball handlers of all time. He died suddenly at age 40 during a pick-up game in 1988 as a consequence of an undetected heart defect.
Early life
Maravich was born to Peter "Press" Maravich (1915–1987) and Helen Gravor Maravich (1925–1974) in Aliquippa, a steel town in Beaver County in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Maravich amazed his family and friends with his basketball abilities from an early age. He enjoyed a close but demanding father-son relationship that motivated him toward achievement and fame in the sport. Maravich's father was the son of Serbian immigrants and a professional player–turned-coach. He showed him the fundamentals starting when he was seven years old. Obsessively, Maravich spent hours practicing ball control tricks, passes, head fakes, and long-range shots.
Maravich played high school varsity ball at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, a year before being old enough to attend the school. While at Daniel from 1961 to 1963, Maravich participated in the school's first-ever game against a team from an all-black school. In 1963 his father departed from his position as head basketball coach at Clemson University and joined the coaching staff at North Carolina State University. The Maravich family's subsequent move to Raleigh, North Carolina, allowed Maravich to attend Needham B. Broughton High School. His high school years also saw the birth of his famous moniker. From his habit of shooting the ball from his side, as if holding a revolver, Maravich became known as "Pistol" Pete Maravich. He graduated from Needham B. Broughton High School in 1965 and then attended Edwards Military Institute, where he averaged 33 points per game. Maravich never liked school and did not like Edwards Military Institute. It was known that Press Maravich was extremely protective of Maravich and would guard against any issue that might come up during his adolescence. Press threatened to shoot Maravich with a 45 caliber pistol if he drank or got into trouble. Maravich was 6 feet 4 inches in high school and was getting ready to play in college when his father took a coaching position at Louisiana State University.
College career
At that time NCAA rules prohibited first-year students from playing at varsity level, which forced Maravich to play on the freshman team. In his first game, Maravich put up 50 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists against Southeastern Louisiana College.
In only three years playing on the varsity team (and under his father's coaching) at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points—1,138 of those in 1967–68, 1,148 in 1968–69, and 1,381 in 1969–70—while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game, respectively. For his collegiate career, the 6'5" (1.96 m) guard averaged 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring for each of his three seasons.
Maravich's long-standing collegiate scoring record is particularly notable when three factors are taken into account:
First, because of the NCAA rules that prohibited him from taking part in varsity competition during his first year as a student, Maravich was prevented from adding to his career record for a full quarter of his time at LSU. During this first year, Maravich scored 741 points in freshman competition.
Second, Maravich played before the advent of the three-point line. This significant difference has raised speculation regarding just how much higher his records would be, given his long-range shooting ability and how such a component might have altered his play. Writing for ESPN.com, Bob Carter stated, "Though Maravich played before [...] the 3-point shot was established, he loved gunning from long range." It has been reported that former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game. And 12 Three Pointer per game.
Third, the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.)
More than 50 years later, however, many of his NCAA and LSU records still stand. Maravich was a three-time All-American. Though he never appeared in the NCAA tournament, Maravich played a key role in turning around a lackluster program that had posted a 3–20 record in the season prior to his arrival. Maravich finished his college career in the 1970 National Invitation Tournament, where LSU finished fourth.
NCAA career statistics
Freshman
At this time, freshmen did not play on the varsity team and these stats do not count in the NCAA record books.
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1966–67
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 19 || 19 || ... || .452 || ... || .833 || 10.4 || ... || ... || ... || 43.6
Varsity
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1967–68
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .423 || ... || .811 || 7.5 || 4.0 || ... || ... || 43.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1968–69
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .444 || ... || .746 || 6.5 || 4.9 || ... || ... || 44.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1969–70
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 31 || 31 || ... || .447 || ... || .773 || 5.3 || 6.2 || ... || ... || 44.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" colspan=2|Career
| 83 || 83 || ... || .438 || ... || .775 || 6.5 || 5.1 || ... || ... || 44.2
Professional career
Atlanta Hawks
The Atlanta Hawks selected Maravich with the third pick in the first round of the 1970 NBA draft, where he played for coach Richie Guerin. He was not a natural fit in Atlanta, as the Hawks already boasted a top-notch scorer at the guard position in Lou Hudson. In fact, Maravich's flamboyant style stood in stark contrast to the conservative play of Hudson and star center Walt Bellamy. And it did not help that many of the veteran players resented the $1.9 million contract that Maravich received from the team—a very large salary at that time.
Maravich appeared in 81 games and averaged 23.2 points per contest—good enough to earn NBA All-Rookie Team honors. And he managed to blend his style with his teammates, so much so that Hudson set a career high by scoring 26.8 points per game. But the team stumbled to a 36–46 record—12 wins fewer than in the previous season. Still, the Hawks qualified for the playoffs, where they lost to the New York Knicks in the first round.
Maravich struggled somewhat during his second season. His scoring average dipped to 19.3 points per game, and the Hawks finished with another disappointing 36–46 record. Once again they qualified for the playoffs, and once again they were eliminated in the first round. However, Atlanta fought hard against the Boston Celtics, with Maravich averaging 27.7 points in the series.
Maravich erupted in his third season, averaging 26.1 points (5th in the NBA) and dishing out 6.9 assists per game (6th in the NBA). With 2,063 points, he combined with Hudson (2,029 points) to become only the second set of teammates in league history to each score over 2,000 points in a single season. The Hawks soared to a 46–36 record, but again bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. However, the season was good enough to earn Maravich his first-ever appearance in the NBA All-Star Game, and also All-NBA Second Team honors.
The following season (1973–74) was his best yet—at least in terms of individual accomplishments. Maravich posted 27.7 points per game—second in the league behind Bob McAdoo—and earned his second appearance in the All-Star Game. However, Atlanta sank to a disappointing 35–47 record and missed the postseason entirely.
New Orleans Jazz
In the summer of 1974, an expansion franchise was preparing for its first season of competition in the NBA. The New Orleans Jazz were looking for something or someone to generate excitement among their new basketball fans. With his exciting style of play, Maravich was seen as the perfect man for the job. Additionally, he was already a celebrity in the state due to his accomplishments at LSU. To acquire Maravich, the Jazz traded two players and four draft picks to Atlanta.
The expansion team struggled mightily in its first season. Maravich managed to score 21.5 points per game, but shot a career-worst 41.9 percent from the floor. The Jazz posted a 23–59 record, worst in the NBA.
Jazz management did its best to give Maravich a better supporting cast. The team posted a 38–44 record in its second season (1975–76) but did not qualify for postseason play, despite the dramatic improvement. Maravich struggled with injuries that limited him to just 62 games that season, but he averaged 25.9 points per contest (third behind McAdoo and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and continued his crowd-pleasing antics. He was elected to the All-NBA First Team that year.
The following season (1976–77) was his most productive in the NBA. He led the league in scoring with an average of 31.1 points per game. He scored 40 points or more in 13 games, and 50 or more in 4 games. His 68-point masterpiece against the Knicks was at the time the most points ever scored by a guard in a single game, and only two players at any position had ever scored more: Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Baylor was head coach of the Jazz at that time.
Maravich earned his third all-star game appearance and was honored as All-NBA First Team for the second consecutive season.
The following season, injuries to both knees forced him to miss 32 games during the 1977–78 season. Despite being robbed of some quickness and athleticism, he still managed to score 27.0 points per game, and he also added 6.7 assists per contest, his highest average as a member of the Jazz. Many of those assists went to new teammate Truck Robinson, who had joined the franchise as a free agent during the off-season. In his first year in New Orleans, he averaged 22.7 points and a league-best 15.7 rebounds per game. His presence prevented opponents from focusing their defensive efforts entirely on Maravich, and it lifted the Jazz to a 39–43 record—just short of making the club's first-ever appearance in the playoffs.
Knee problems plagued Maravich for the rest of his career. He played in just 49 games during the 1978–79 season. He scored 22.6 points per game that season and earned his fifth and final All-Star appearance. But his scoring and passing abilities were severely impaired. The team struggled on the court, and faced serious financial trouble as well. Management became desperate to make some changes. The Jazz traded Robinson to the Phoenix Suns, receiving draft picks and some cash in return. However, in 1979, team owner Sam Battistone moved the Jazz to Salt Lake City.
Final season
The Utah Jazz began play in the 1979–80 season. Maravich moved with the team to Salt Lake City, but his knee problems were worse than ever. He appeared in 17 games early in the season, but his injuries prevented him from practicing much, and new coach Tom Nissalke had a strict rule that players who didn't practice were not allowed to play in games. Thus, Maravich was parked on the bench for 24 straight games, much to the dismay of Utah fans and to Maravich himself. During that time, Adrian Dantley emerged as the team's franchise player.
The Jazz placed Maravich on waivers in January 1980. He signed with the Celtics, the top team in the league that year, led by rookie superstar Larry Bird. Maravich adjusted to a new role as part-time contributor, giving Boston a "hired gun" off the bench. He helped the team post a 61–21 record in the regular season, best in the league. And, for the first time since his early career in Atlanta, Maravich was able to participate in the NBA playoffs. He appeared in nine games during that postseason, but the Celtics were upended by Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals, four games to one.
Realizing that his knee problems would never go away, Maravich retired at the end of that season. The NBA instituted the 3-point shot just in time for Maravich's last season in the league. He had always been famous for his long-range shooting, and his final year provided an official statistical gauge of his abilities. Between his limited playing time in Utah and Boston, he made 10 of 15 3-point shots, giving him a career 66.7% completion rate behind the arc.
During his ten-year career in the NBA, Maravich played in 658 games, averaging 24.2 points and 5.4 assists per contest. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and his No. 7 jersey has been retired by both the Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans, as well as his No. 44 jersey by the Atlanta Hawks.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1970–71
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 81 || ... || 36.1 || .458 || ... || .800 || 3.7 || 4.4 || ... || ... || 23.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971–72
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 66 || ... || 34.9 || .427 || ... || .811 || 3.9 || 6.0 || ... || ... || 19.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972–73
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 79 || ... || 39.1 || .441 || ... || .800 || 4.4 || 6.9 || ... || ... || 26.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973–74
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 76 || ... || 38.2 || .457 || ... || .826 || 4.9 || 5.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1974–75
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 79 || ... || 36.1 || .419 || ... || .811 || 5.3 || 6.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 21.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1975–76
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 62 || ... || 38.3 || .459|| ... || .811 || 4.8 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .4 || 25.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1976–77
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 73 || ... || 41.7 || .433 || ... || .835 || 5.1 || 5.4 || 1.2 || .3 ||style="background:#cfecec;"| 31.1*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1977–78
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 50 || ... || 40.8 || .444 || ... || .870 || 3.6 || 6.7 || 2.0 || .2 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1978–79
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 49 || ... || 37.2 || .421 || ... || .841 || 2.5 || 5.0 || 1.2 || .4 || 22.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Utah
| 17 || ... || 30.7 || .412 || .636 || .820 || 2.4 || 3.2 || .9 || .2 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 26 || 4 || 17.0 || .494 || .750 ||.909 || 1.5 || 1.1 || .3 || .1 || 11.5
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| Career
| 658 || ... || 37.0 || .441 || .667 || .820 || 4.2 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .3 || 24.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| All-Star
| 4 || 4 || 19.8 || .409 || ... || .778 || 2.0 || 3.8 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 10.8
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 5 || ... || 39.8 || .377 || ... || .692 || 5.2 || 4.8 || ... || ... || 22.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 36.5 || .446 || ... || .817 || 5.3 || 4.7 || ... || ... || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 39.0 || .419 || ... || .794 || 4.8 || 6.7 || ... || ... || 26.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1980
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 9 || ... || 11.6 || .490 || .333 || .667 || .9 || .7 || .3 || .0 || 6.0
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2|Career
| 26 || ... || 29.1 || .423 || .333 || .784 || 3.6 || 3.8 || ... || ... || 18.7
|-
Later life and death
After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics, adopting a vegetarian diet in 1982. Eventually, he became a born-again Christian, embracing evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves Him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player."
On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect.
Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had died of suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Legacy
Maravich was survived by his wife Jackie and his sons Jaeson, who was 8 years old at the time of his death, and Josh, aged 5. Only the previous year, Maravich had taken Jaeson to the 1987 NBA All-Star Game in Seattle, Washington, and introduced him to Michael Jordan.
Since Maravich's children were very young when he died, Jackie Maravich initially shielded them from unwanted media attention, not even allowing Jaeson and Josh to attend their father's funeral. However, a proclivity to basketball seemed to be an inherited trait. During a 2003 interview, Jaeson told USA Today that, when he was still only a toddler, "My dad passed me a (Nerf) basketball, and I've been hooked ever since ... My dad said I shot and missed, and I got mad and I kept shooting. He said his dad told him he did the same thing."
Despite some setbacks coping with their father's death and without the benefit that his tutelage might have provided, both sons eventually were inspired to play high school and collegiate basketball—Josh at his father's alma mater, LSU.
On June 27, 2014, Governor Bobby Jindal proposed that LSU erect a statue of Maravich outside the Assembly Center, which already bore the basketball star's name. Former coach Dale Brown opposed such a monument, but Maravich's widow, Jackie McLachlan, said that she had been promised a statue after the passing of her husband. McLachlan said that she has noticed how fans struggle to get the Maravich name on the Assembly Center into a camera frame.
In February 2016, the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame Committee unanimously approved a proposal that a statue honoring Maravich be installed on the campus.
A street in Belgrade, Serbia, is named after Pete Maravich.
Memorabilia
Maravich's untimely death and mystique have made memorabilia associated with him among the most highly prized of any basketball collectibles. Game-used Maravich jerseys bring more money at auction than similar items from anybody other than George Mikan, with the most common items selling for $10,000 and up and a game-used LSU jersey selling for $94,300 in a 2001 Grey Flannel auction. The signed game ball from his career-high 68-point night on February 25, 1977, sold for $131,450 in a 2009 Heritage auction.
Honors, books, films and music
In 1987, roughly a year before his death, Maravich co-authored an award-winning (Gold Medallion) autobiography with Darrel Campbell titled Heir to a Dream that devoted much focus to his life after retirement from basketball and his later devotion to Christianity.
In 1987, Maravich and Darrel Campbell produced the four-episode basketball instructional video series Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball.
In 1988, Frank Schroeder and Darrel Campbell produced the documentary based on Pete Maravich's college career titled, Maravich Memories: The LSU Years.
After Maravich's death, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer signed a proclamation officially renaming the LSU home court the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
In 1991, a biographical film written and produced by Darrel Campbell dramatizing his 8th-grade season entitled The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend was released.
In 1996, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History by a panel made up of NBA historians, players, and coaches. He was the only deceased player on the list. At the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland, he was represented by his two sons at halftime.
In 2001, a comprehensive 90-minute documentary film debuted on CBS entitled Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.
In 2005, ESPNU named Maravich the greatest college basketball player of all time.
In 2007, two biographies of Maravich were released: Maravich by Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill and Pistol by Mark Kriegel. Also in 2007, to promote Mark Kriegel's book "Pistol", Fox Sports conducted a contest to find "Pete Maravich's Biggest Fan". The winner was Scott Pollack of Sunrise, FL.
In 2021, he was named one of the members of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team by a panel made up of NBA historians, players and coaches. He was one of the deceased players on the list.
In 1970, during his LSU days, Acapulco Music/The Panama Limited released "The Ballad of Pete Maravich by Bob Tinney and Woody Jenkins.
The Ziggens, a band from Southern California, wrote a song about Maravich entitled "Pistol Pete".
Collegiate awards
The Sporting News College Player of the Year (1970)
USBWA College Player of the Year (1969, 1970)
Naismith Award Winner (1970)
Helms Foundation Player of the Year (1970)
UPI Player of the Year (1970)
Sporting News Player of the Year (1970)
AP College Player of the Year (1970)
The Sporting News All-America First Team (1968, 1969, 1970)
Three-time AP and UPI First-Team All-America (1968, 1969, 1970)
Led the NCAA Division I in scoring with 43.8 ppg (1968); 44.2 (1969) and 44.5 ppg (1970)
Averaged 43.6 ppg on the LSU freshman team (1967)
Scored a career-high 69 points vs. Alabama (); 66 vs. Tulane (); 64 vs. Kentucky (); 61 vs. Vanderbilt ()
Holds LSU records for most field goals made (26) and attempted (57) in a game against Vanderbilt on
All-Southeastern Conference (1968, 1969, 1970)
#23 Jersey retired by LSU (2007)
In 1970, Maravich led LSU to a 20–8 record and a fourth-place finish in the National Invitation Tournament
Collegiate records
Points, career: 3,667 (three seasons)
Highest scoring average, points per game, career: 44.2 (3,667 points/83 games)
Points, season: 1,381 (1970)
Highest scoring average, points per game, season: 44.5 (1,381/31) (1970)
Games scoring 50 or more points, career: 28
Games scoring 50 or more points, season: 10 (1970)
Field goals made, career: 1,387
Field goals made, season: 522 (1970)
Field goal attempts, career: 3,166
Field goal attempts, season: 1,168 (1970)
Free throws made, game: 30 (in 31 attempts), vs. Oregon State,
Tied by Ben Woodside, North Dakota State, on
NBA awards
NBA All-Rookie Team
All-NBA First Team (1976, 1977)
All-NBA Second Team (1973, 1978)
Five-time NBA All-Star (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979)
Led the league in scoring (31.1 ppg) in 1977, his career best
Scored a career-high 68 points against the New York Knicks on February 25, 1977
#7 jersey retired by the Utah Jazz (1985)
#7 jersey retired by the Superdome (1988)
NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team (1996)
NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021)
#7 jersey retired by the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) (2002), even though he never played for them—one of only four players to have a number retired by a team they did not play for; Maravich did play professionally for the New Orleans Jazz, however, and has remained a greatly admired figure amongst New Orleans sports fans ever since.
#44 jersey retired by the Atlanta Hawks (2017)
NBA records
Free throws made, quarter: 14, Pete Maravich, third quarter, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Broken by Vince Carter on
Free throw attempts, quarter: 16, Pete Maravich, second quarter, Atlanta Hawks at Chicago Bulls,
Broken by Ben Wallace on
Second pair of teammates in NBA history to score 2,000 or more points in a season: 2, Atlanta Hawks ()
Maravich: 2,063
Lou Hudson: 2,029
Third pair of teammates in NBA history to score 40 or more points in the same game: New Orleans Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets,
Maravich: 45
Nate Williams: 41
David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets also scored 40 points in this game.
Ranks 4th in NBA history – Free throws made, none missed, game: 18–18, Pete Maravich, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Ranks 5th in NBA history – Free throws made, game: 23, Pete Maravich, New Orleans Jazz vs. New York Knicks, (2 OT)
See also
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 60 or more points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball season scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual minutes leaders
Further reading
Campbell, Darrel (2019). Hero & Friend: My Days with Pistol Pete. Percussion Films. .
Brown, Danny (2008). Shooting the Pistol: Courtside Photographs of Pete Maravich at LSU. Louisiana State University Press
References
External links
NBA Historical Bio
ESPN bio
Pete Maravich's Greatest Achievement
‘68 All College MVP - 4 Days with Pistol Pete
Pete Maravich Bio LSU Tigers Athletics
1947 births
1988 deaths
All-American college men's basketball players
American evangelicals
American men's basketball players
American people of Serbian descent
Atlanta Hawks draft picks
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players from Pennsylvania
Boston Celtics players
College basketball announcers in the United States
LSU Tigers basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Needham B. Broughton High School alumni
New Orleans Jazz players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
People from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area
Basketball players from Raleigh, North Carolina
Utah Jazz players | true | [
"Ken Ramsauer (December 26, 1954 – May 24, 1983) was an American businessperson. He was a hardware store manager and freelance lighting designer who became the first person with AIDS to be the subject of a national network television news special when he was interviewed by Geraldo Rivera on the 20/20 television program broadcast four days before his death in 1983. At the time little was known of AIDS, including its means of transmission. A candlelight vigil was held in Central Park commemorating his life and death, opened by New York Mayor Ed Koch and attracting 1,500 people. The vigil was later covered in the book version of How to Survive a Plague. Around 600 individuals were known to have died from AIDS at the time of Ramsauer's death, and their names were read aloud at the vigil. The vigil was called \"the first large gathering acknowledging the existence of the epidemic\".\n\nAt the time of his death, the public was advised by authorities to avoid contact with individuals infected with HIV. Ramsauer recalled in the 20/20 interview how he was treated by hospital staff who he overheard asking \"I wonder how long the faggot in 208 is going to last.\" Some sources have stated that Ramsauer was sought out by the 20/20 producers for the shocking appearance of a man near death, seeking \"the most debilitated people with AIDS they could find\". Ramsauer's treatment by the press was \"decisively deconstructed\" in Bright Eyes, a documentary by writer and filmmaker Stuart Marshall describing \"the pathology of fear and manipulation surrounding the AIDS crisis\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1950s births\n1983 deaths\nAIDS-related deaths in New York (state)\nBusinesspeople from New York (state)\n20th-century American businesspeople",
"Ephex Kanana Gichuru (14 December 1986 22 September 2015) was a Kenyan actress and TV host. She was popularly known as Nana Gichuru. As an actress she was known for her roles in television series Noose of Gold, Demigods and How to Find a Husband. As a host, she was to present Interior Designs, a Kenyan reality series, prior to her death. She was also a crew member for Kenya Airways. She had been married to Richard Wainaina just before her death.\n\nCareer \nGichuru starred in several productions like Noose of Gold in 2010 and Demigods in 2011. Her latest production was a role in the comedy How to Find a Husband and the reality show Interior Designs\n\nDeath \nAt approximately 10am on 22 September 2015, Nana was travelling in her BMW convertible on Eastern Bypass, Utawala, when her car rammed into a truck. She died on the spot. She died at the age of 28. Her death came ten days after she reportedly predicted her own death in her social media pages. Her memorial service was held on 30 September 2015 in Ruaraka Methodist Church. She was buried on 2 October 2015 in her hometown, Kaaga in Meru.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n1986 births\n2015 deaths\nKenyan television actresses\nKenyan film actresses\nKenyan telenovela actresses\nKenyan photographers\n21st-century Kenyan actresses\nSoap opera actresses"
]
|
[
"Pete Maravich",
"Later life and death",
"who is pete maravich",
"I don't know.",
"when did he die",
"On January 5, 1988,",
"where did he die",
"at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California,",
"how did he die",
"collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40",
"what was he doing when he died",
"playing in a pickup basketball game",
"how did his family take his death",
"I don't know.",
"how was life before death",
"Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching \"for life\"."
]
| C_7a47529a4d6242489384cc97e06de9d6_1 | did he find life | 8 | Did Pete Maravich find life after becoming reclusive for two years? | Pete Maravich | After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics. Eventually, he embraced evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player." On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great. I just feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect. Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Peter Press Maravich (; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), known by his nickname Pistol Pete, was an American professional basketball player. Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and raised in the Carolinas. Maravich starred in college with the LSU Tigers while playing for his father, head coach Press Maravich. He is the all-time leading NCAA Division I scorer with 3,667 points scored and an average of 44.2 points per game. All of his accomplishments were achieved before the adoption of the three-point line and shot clock, and despite being unable to play varsity as a freshman under then-NCAA rules. He played for three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams until injuries forced his retirement in 1980 following a 10-year professional career.
One of the youngest players ever inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Maravich was considered to be one of the greatest creative offensive talents ever and one of the best ball handlers of all time. He died suddenly at age 40 during a pick-up game in 1988 as a consequence of an undetected heart defect.
Early life
Maravich was born to Peter "Press" Maravich (1915–1987) and Helen Gravor Maravich (1925–1974) in Aliquippa, a steel town in Beaver County in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Maravich amazed his family and friends with his basketball abilities from an early age. He enjoyed a close but demanding father-son relationship that motivated him toward achievement and fame in the sport. Maravich's father was the son of Serbian immigrants and a professional player–turned-coach. He showed him the fundamentals starting when he was seven years old. Obsessively, Maravich spent hours practicing ball control tricks, passes, head fakes, and long-range shots.
Maravich played high school varsity ball at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, a year before being old enough to attend the school. While at Daniel from 1961 to 1963, Maravich participated in the school's first-ever game against a team from an all-black school. In 1963 his father departed from his position as head basketball coach at Clemson University and joined the coaching staff at North Carolina State University. The Maravich family's subsequent move to Raleigh, North Carolina, allowed Maravich to attend Needham B. Broughton High School. His high school years also saw the birth of his famous moniker. From his habit of shooting the ball from his side, as if holding a revolver, Maravich became known as "Pistol" Pete Maravich. He graduated from Needham B. Broughton High School in 1965 and then attended Edwards Military Institute, where he averaged 33 points per game. Maravich never liked school and did not like Edwards Military Institute. It was known that Press Maravich was extremely protective of Maravich and would guard against any issue that might come up during his adolescence. Press threatened to shoot Maravich with a 45 caliber pistol if he drank or got into trouble. Maravich was 6 feet 4 inches in high school and was getting ready to play in college when his father took a coaching position at Louisiana State University.
College career
At that time NCAA rules prohibited first-year students from playing at varsity level, which forced Maravich to play on the freshman team. In his first game, Maravich put up 50 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists against Southeastern Louisiana College.
In only three years playing on the varsity team (and under his father's coaching) at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points—1,138 of those in 1967–68, 1,148 in 1968–69, and 1,381 in 1969–70—while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game, respectively. For his collegiate career, the 6'5" (1.96 m) guard averaged 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring for each of his three seasons.
Maravich's long-standing collegiate scoring record is particularly notable when three factors are taken into account:
First, because of the NCAA rules that prohibited him from taking part in varsity competition during his first year as a student, Maravich was prevented from adding to his career record for a full quarter of his time at LSU. During this first year, Maravich scored 741 points in freshman competition.
Second, Maravich played before the advent of the three-point line. This significant difference has raised speculation regarding just how much higher his records would be, given his long-range shooting ability and how such a component might have altered his play. Writing for ESPN.com, Bob Carter stated, "Though Maravich played before [...] the 3-point shot was established, he loved gunning from long range." It has been reported that former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game. And 12 Three Pointer per game.
Third, the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.)
More than 50 years later, however, many of his NCAA and LSU records still stand. Maravich was a three-time All-American. Though he never appeared in the NCAA tournament, Maravich played a key role in turning around a lackluster program that had posted a 3–20 record in the season prior to his arrival. Maravich finished his college career in the 1970 National Invitation Tournament, where LSU finished fourth.
NCAA career statistics
Freshman
At this time, freshmen did not play on the varsity team and these stats do not count in the NCAA record books.
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1966–67
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 19 || 19 || ... || .452 || ... || .833 || 10.4 || ... || ... || ... || 43.6
Varsity
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1967–68
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .423 || ... || .811 || 7.5 || 4.0 || ... || ... || 43.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1968–69
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 26 || 26 || ... || .444 || ... || .746 || 6.5 || 4.9 || ... || ... || 44.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1969–70
| style="text-align:left;"| Louisiana State
| 31 || 31 || ... || .447 || ... || .773 || 5.3 || 6.2 || ... || ... || 44.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" colspan=2|Career
| 83 || 83 || ... || .438 || ... || .775 || 6.5 || 5.1 || ... || ... || 44.2
Professional career
Atlanta Hawks
The Atlanta Hawks selected Maravich with the third pick in the first round of the 1970 NBA draft, where he played for coach Richie Guerin. He was not a natural fit in Atlanta, as the Hawks already boasted a top-notch scorer at the guard position in Lou Hudson. In fact, Maravich's flamboyant style stood in stark contrast to the conservative play of Hudson and star center Walt Bellamy. And it did not help that many of the veteran players resented the $1.9 million contract that Maravich received from the team—a very large salary at that time.
Maravich appeared in 81 games and averaged 23.2 points per contest—good enough to earn NBA All-Rookie Team honors. And he managed to blend his style with his teammates, so much so that Hudson set a career high by scoring 26.8 points per game. But the team stumbled to a 36–46 record—12 wins fewer than in the previous season. Still, the Hawks qualified for the playoffs, where they lost to the New York Knicks in the first round.
Maravich struggled somewhat during his second season. His scoring average dipped to 19.3 points per game, and the Hawks finished with another disappointing 36–46 record. Once again they qualified for the playoffs, and once again they were eliminated in the first round. However, Atlanta fought hard against the Boston Celtics, with Maravich averaging 27.7 points in the series.
Maravich erupted in his third season, averaging 26.1 points (5th in the NBA) and dishing out 6.9 assists per game (6th in the NBA). With 2,063 points, he combined with Hudson (2,029 points) to become only the second set of teammates in league history to each score over 2,000 points in a single season. The Hawks soared to a 46–36 record, but again bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. However, the season was good enough to earn Maravich his first-ever appearance in the NBA All-Star Game, and also All-NBA Second Team honors.
The following season (1973–74) was his best yet—at least in terms of individual accomplishments. Maravich posted 27.7 points per game—second in the league behind Bob McAdoo—and earned his second appearance in the All-Star Game. However, Atlanta sank to a disappointing 35–47 record and missed the postseason entirely.
New Orleans Jazz
In the summer of 1974, an expansion franchise was preparing for its first season of competition in the NBA. The New Orleans Jazz were looking for something or someone to generate excitement among their new basketball fans. With his exciting style of play, Maravich was seen as the perfect man for the job. Additionally, he was already a celebrity in the state due to his accomplishments at LSU. To acquire Maravich, the Jazz traded two players and four draft picks to Atlanta.
The expansion team struggled mightily in its first season. Maravich managed to score 21.5 points per game, but shot a career-worst 41.9 percent from the floor. The Jazz posted a 23–59 record, worst in the NBA.
Jazz management did its best to give Maravich a better supporting cast. The team posted a 38–44 record in its second season (1975–76) but did not qualify for postseason play, despite the dramatic improvement. Maravich struggled with injuries that limited him to just 62 games that season, but he averaged 25.9 points per contest (third behind McAdoo and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and continued his crowd-pleasing antics. He was elected to the All-NBA First Team that year.
The following season (1976–77) was his most productive in the NBA. He led the league in scoring with an average of 31.1 points per game. He scored 40 points or more in 13 games, and 50 or more in 4 games. His 68-point masterpiece against the Knicks was at the time the most points ever scored by a guard in a single game, and only two players at any position had ever scored more: Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Baylor was head coach of the Jazz at that time.
Maravich earned his third all-star game appearance and was honored as All-NBA First Team for the second consecutive season.
The following season, injuries to both knees forced him to miss 32 games during the 1977–78 season. Despite being robbed of some quickness and athleticism, he still managed to score 27.0 points per game, and he also added 6.7 assists per contest, his highest average as a member of the Jazz. Many of those assists went to new teammate Truck Robinson, who had joined the franchise as a free agent during the off-season. In his first year in New Orleans, he averaged 22.7 points and a league-best 15.7 rebounds per game. His presence prevented opponents from focusing their defensive efforts entirely on Maravich, and it lifted the Jazz to a 39–43 record—just short of making the club's first-ever appearance in the playoffs.
Knee problems plagued Maravich for the rest of his career. He played in just 49 games during the 1978–79 season. He scored 22.6 points per game that season and earned his fifth and final All-Star appearance. But his scoring and passing abilities were severely impaired. The team struggled on the court, and faced serious financial trouble as well. Management became desperate to make some changes. The Jazz traded Robinson to the Phoenix Suns, receiving draft picks and some cash in return. However, in 1979, team owner Sam Battistone moved the Jazz to Salt Lake City.
Final season
The Utah Jazz began play in the 1979–80 season. Maravich moved with the team to Salt Lake City, but his knee problems were worse than ever. He appeared in 17 games early in the season, but his injuries prevented him from practicing much, and new coach Tom Nissalke had a strict rule that players who didn't practice were not allowed to play in games. Thus, Maravich was parked on the bench for 24 straight games, much to the dismay of Utah fans and to Maravich himself. During that time, Adrian Dantley emerged as the team's franchise player.
The Jazz placed Maravich on waivers in January 1980. He signed with the Celtics, the top team in the league that year, led by rookie superstar Larry Bird. Maravich adjusted to a new role as part-time contributor, giving Boston a "hired gun" off the bench. He helped the team post a 61–21 record in the regular season, best in the league. And, for the first time since his early career in Atlanta, Maravich was able to participate in the NBA playoffs. He appeared in nine games during that postseason, but the Celtics were upended by Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference finals, four games to one.
Realizing that his knee problems would never go away, Maravich retired at the end of that season. The NBA instituted the 3-point shot just in time for Maravich's last season in the league. He had always been famous for his long-range shooting, and his final year provided an official statistical gauge of his abilities. Between his limited playing time in Utah and Boston, he made 10 of 15 3-point shots, giving him a career 66.7% completion rate behind the arc.
During his ten-year career in the NBA, Maravich played in 658 games, averaging 24.2 points and 5.4 assists per contest. In 1987, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and his No. 7 jersey has been retired by both the Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans, as well as his No. 44 jersey by the Atlanta Hawks.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1970–71
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 81 || ... || 36.1 || .458 || ... || .800 || 3.7 || 4.4 || ... || ... || 23.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971–72
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 66 || ... || 34.9 || .427 || ... || .811 || 3.9 || 6.0 || ... || ... || 19.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972–73
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 79 || ... || 39.1 || .441 || ... || .800 || 4.4 || 6.9 || ... || ... || 26.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973–74
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 76 || ... || 38.2 || .457 || ... || .826 || 4.9 || 5.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1974–75
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 79 || ... || 36.1 || .419 || ... || .811 || 5.3 || 6.2 || 1.5 || .2 || 21.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1975–76
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 62 || ... || 38.3 || .459|| ... || .811 || 4.8 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .4 || 25.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1976–77
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 73 || ... || 41.7 || .433 || ... || .835 || 5.1 || 5.4 || 1.2 || .3 ||style="background:#cfecec;"| 31.1*
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1977–78
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 50 || ... || 40.8 || .444 || ... || .870 || 3.6 || 6.7 || 2.0 || .2 || 27.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1978–79
| style="text-align:left;"| New Orleans
| 49 || ... || 37.2 || .421 || ... || .841 || 2.5 || 5.0 || 1.2 || .4 || 22.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Utah
| 17 || ... || 30.7 || .412 || .636 || .820 || 2.4 || 3.2 || .9 || .2 || 17.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1979–80
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 26 || 4 || 17.0 || .494 || .750 ||.909 || 1.5 || 1.1 || .3 || .1 || 11.5
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| Career
| 658 || ... || 37.0 || .441 || .667 || .820 || 4.2 || 5.4 || 1.4 || .3 || 24.2
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| All-Star
| 4 || 4 || 19.8 || .409 || ... || .778 || 2.0 || 3.8 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 10.8
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1971
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 5 || ... || 39.8 || .377 || ... || .692 || 5.2 || 4.8 || ... || ... || 22.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1972
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 36.5 || .446 || ... || .817 || 5.3 || 4.7 || ... || ... || 27.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1973
| style="text-align:left;"| Atlanta
| 6 || ... || 39.0 || .419 || ... || .794 || 4.8 || 6.7 || ... || ... || 26.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1980
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 9 || ... || 11.6 || .490 || .333 || .667 || .9 || .7 || .3 || .0 || 6.0
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2|Career
| 26 || ... || 29.1 || .423 || .333 || .784 || 3.6 || 3.8 || ... || ... || 18.7
|-
Later life and death
After injuries forced his retirement from the game in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life". He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics, adopting a vegetarian diet in 1982. Eventually, he became a born-again Christian, embracing evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves Him [Jesus] to the utmost, not as a basketball player."
On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40 while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day. Dobson has said that Maravich's last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel that supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect.
Maravich died the year after his father's passing and a number of years after his mother, who had died of suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Legacy
Maravich was survived by his wife Jackie and his sons Jaeson, who was 8 years old at the time of his death, and Josh, aged 5. Only the previous year, Maravich had taken Jaeson to the 1987 NBA All-Star Game in Seattle, Washington, and introduced him to Michael Jordan.
Since Maravich's children were very young when he died, Jackie Maravich initially shielded them from unwanted media attention, not even allowing Jaeson and Josh to attend their father's funeral. However, a proclivity to basketball seemed to be an inherited trait. During a 2003 interview, Jaeson told USA Today that, when he was still only a toddler, "My dad passed me a (Nerf) basketball, and I've been hooked ever since ... My dad said I shot and missed, and I got mad and I kept shooting. He said his dad told him he did the same thing."
Despite some setbacks coping with their father's death and without the benefit that his tutelage might have provided, both sons eventually were inspired to play high school and collegiate basketball—Josh at his father's alma mater, LSU.
On June 27, 2014, Governor Bobby Jindal proposed that LSU erect a statue of Maravich outside the Assembly Center, which already bore the basketball star's name. Former coach Dale Brown opposed such a monument, but Maravich's widow, Jackie McLachlan, said that she had been promised a statue after the passing of her husband. McLachlan said that she has noticed how fans struggle to get the Maravich name on the Assembly Center into a camera frame.
In February 2016, the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame Committee unanimously approved a proposal that a statue honoring Maravich be installed on the campus.
A street in Belgrade, Serbia, is named after Pete Maravich.
Memorabilia
Maravich's untimely death and mystique have made memorabilia associated with him among the most highly prized of any basketball collectibles. Game-used Maravich jerseys bring more money at auction than similar items from anybody other than George Mikan, with the most common items selling for $10,000 and up and a game-used LSU jersey selling for $94,300 in a 2001 Grey Flannel auction. The signed game ball from his career-high 68-point night on February 25, 1977, sold for $131,450 in a 2009 Heritage auction.
Honors, books, films and music
In 1987, roughly a year before his death, Maravich co-authored an award-winning (Gold Medallion) autobiography with Darrel Campbell titled Heir to a Dream that devoted much focus to his life after retirement from basketball and his later devotion to Christianity.
In 1987, Maravich and Darrel Campbell produced the four-episode basketball instructional video series Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball.
In 1988, Frank Schroeder and Darrel Campbell produced the documentary based on Pete Maravich's college career titled, Maravich Memories: The LSU Years.
After Maravich's death, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer signed a proclamation officially renaming the LSU home court the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
In 1991, a biographical film written and produced by Darrel Campbell dramatizing his 8th-grade season entitled The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend was released.
In 1996, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History by a panel made up of NBA historians, players, and coaches. He was the only deceased player on the list. At the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland, he was represented by his two sons at halftime.
In 2001, a comprehensive 90-minute documentary film debuted on CBS entitled Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.
In 2005, ESPNU named Maravich the greatest college basketball player of all time.
In 2007, two biographies of Maravich were released: Maravich by Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill and Pistol by Mark Kriegel. Also in 2007, to promote Mark Kriegel's book "Pistol", Fox Sports conducted a contest to find "Pete Maravich's Biggest Fan". The winner was Scott Pollack of Sunrise, FL.
In 2021, he was named one of the members of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team by a panel made up of NBA historians, players and coaches. He was one of the deceased players on the list.
In 1970, during his LSU days, Acapulco Music/The Panama Limited released "The Ballad of Pete Maravich by Bob Tinney and Woody Jenkins.
The Ziggens, a band from Southern California, wrote a song about Maravich entitled "Pistol Pete".
Collegiate awards
The Sporting News College Player of the Year (1970)
USBWA College Player of the Year (1969, 1970)
Naismith Award Winner (1970)
Helms Foundation Player of the Year (1970)
UPI Player of the Year (1970)
Sporting News Player of the Year (1970)
AP College Player of the Year (1970)
The Sporting News All-America First Team (1968, 1969, 1970)
Three-time AP and UPI First-Team All-America (1968, 1969, 1970)
Led the NCAA Division I in scoring with 43.8 ppg (1968); 44.2 (1969) and 44.5 ppg (1970)
Averaged 43.6 ppg on the LSU freshman team (1967)
Scored a career-high 69 points vs. Alabama (); 66 vs. Tulane (); 64 vs. Kentucky (); 61 vs. Vanderbilt ()
Holds LSU records for most field goals made (26) and attempted (57) in a game against Vanderbilt on
All-Southeastern Conference (1968, 1969, 1970)
#23 Jersey retired by LSU (2007)
In 1970, Maravich led LSU to a 20–8 record and a fourth-place finish in the National Invitation Tournament
Collegiate records
Points, career: 3,667 (three seasons)
Highest scoring average, points per game, career: 44.2 (3,667 points/83 games)
Points, season: 1,381 (1970)
Highest scoring average, points per game, season: 44.5 (1,381/31) (1970)
Games scoring 50 or more points, career: 28
Games scoring 50 or more points, season: 10 (1970)
Field goals made, career: 1,387
Field goals made, season: 522 (1970)
Field goal attempts, career: 3,166
Field goal attempts, season: 1,168 (1970)
Free throws made, game: 30 (in 31 attempts), vs. Oregon State,
Tied by Ben Woodside, North Dakota State, on
NBA awards
NBA All-Rookie Team
All-NBA First Team (1976, 1977)
All-NBA Second Team (1973, 1978)
Five-time NBA All-Star (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979)
Led the league in scoring (31.1 ppg) in 1977, his career best
Scored a career-high 68 points against the New York Knicks on February 25, 1977
#7 jersey retired by the Utah Jazz (1985)
#7 jersey retired by the Superdome (1988)
NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team (1996)
NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021)
#7 jersey retired by the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) (2002), even though he never played for them—one of only four players to have a number retired by a team they did not play for; Maravich did play professionally for the New Orleans Jazz, however, and has remained a greatly admired figure amongst New Orleans sports fans ever since.
#44 jersey retired by the Atlanta Hawks (2017)
NBA records
Free throws made, quarter: 14, Pete Maravich, third quarter, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Broken by Vince Carter on
Free throw attempts, quarter: 16, Pete Maravich, second quarter, Atlanta Hawks at Chicago Bulls,
Broken by Ben Wallace on
Second pair of teammates in NBA history to score 2,000 or more points in a season: 2, Atlanta Hawks ()
Maravich: 2,063
Lou Hudson: 2,029
Third pair of teammates in NBA history to score 40 or more points in the same game: New Orleans Jazz vs. Denver Nuggets,
Maravich: 45
Nate Williams: 41
David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets also scored 40 points in this game.
Ranks 4th in NBA history – Free throws made, none missed, game: 18–18, Pete Maravich, Atlanta Hawks vs. Buffalo Braves,
Ranks 5th in NBA history – Free throws made, game: 23, Pete Maravich, New Orleans Jazz vs. New York Knicks, (2 OT)
See also
List of individual National Basketball Association scoring leaders by season
List of National Basketball Association players with most points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 60 or more points in a game
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball season scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career scoring leaders
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career free throw scoring leaders
List of National Basketball Association annual minutes leaders
Further reading
Campbell, Darrel (2019). Hero & Friend: My Days with Pistol Pete. Percussion Films. .
Brown, Danny (2008). Shooting the Pistol: Courtside Photographs of Pete Maravich at LSU. Louisiana State University Press
References
External links
NBA Historical Bio
ESPN bio
Pete Maravich's Greatest Achievement
‘68 All College MVP - 4 Days with Pistol Pete
Pete Maravich Bio LSU Tigers Athletics
1947 births
1988 deaths
All-American college men's basketball players
American evangelicals
American men's basketball players
American people of Serbian descent
Atlanta Hawks draft picks
Atlanta Hawks players
Basketball players from Pennsylvania
Boston Celtics players
College basketball announcers in the United States
LSU Tigers basketball players
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
Needham B. Broughton High School alumni
New Orleans Jazz players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
People from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area
Basketball players from Raleigh, North Carolina
Utah Jazz players | false | [
"This is a bibliography of the books written or edited by Isaac Asimov, arranged alphabetically. Asimov was a prolific author, and he engaged in many collaborations with other authors. This list may not yet be complete. The total number of books listed here is over 500. Asimov died in 1992 at age 72; a small number of his books were published posthumously.\n\nA\n ABC's of Ecology\n ABC's of Space\n ABC's of the Earth\n ABC's of the Ocean\n Adding a Dimension\n All the Troubles of the World\n Alpha Centauri, the Nearest Star\n The Alternate Asimovs\n Amazing Stories: Sixty Years of the Best Science Fiction\n Ancient Astronomy\n Animals of the Bible\n The Annotated 'Gulliver's Travels'\n The Asimov Chronicles\n Asimov Laughs Again\n Asimov on Astronomy\n Asimov on Chemistry\n Asimov on Numbers\n Asimov on Physics\n Asimov on Science\n Asimov on Science Fiction\n Asimov's Annotated 'Don Juan'\n Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan\n Asimov's Annotated 'Paradise Lost'\n Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology\n Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 2D Ed.\n Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 3D Ed.\n Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery\n Asimov's Chronology of the World\n Asimov's Galaxy: Reflections on Science Fiction\n Asimov's Guide to Halley's Comet\n Asimov's Guide to Science\n Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Volume One\n Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, Volume Two\n Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Volume One\n Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Volume Two\n Asimov's Mysteries\n Asimov's New Guide to Science\n Asimov's Sherlockian Limericks\n The Asteroids\n Astronomy Today\n Atlantis\n Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos\n Authorised Murder (Originally published as Murder at the ABA)\n Azazel (1988)\n\nB\n Baker's Dozen: Thirteen Short Fantasy Novels\n Baker's Dozen: Thirteen Short Science Fiction Novels\n Banquets of the Black Widowers\n Before the Golden Age\n The Beginning and the End\n Beginnings: The Story of Origins, of Mankind, Life, the Earth, the Universe\n The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov\n The Best New Thing\n The Best of Isaac Asimov\n The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov\n The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories\n The Big Apple Mysteries\n Biochemistry and Human Metabolism\n The Birth and Death of Stars\n The Birth of the United States, 1763–1816\n Breakthroughs in Science\n Building Blocks of the Universe\n Buy Jupiter and Other Stories\n\nC\n\n Cal See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Casebook of the Black Widowers\n Catastrophes!\n Caught in the Organ Draft\n The Caves of Steel (1954), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Change!\n The Chemicals of Life\n Chemistry and Human Health\n Child of Time (with Robert Silverberg, UK title of The Ugly Little Boy)\n A Choice of Catastrophes\n Christopher Columbus: Navigator to the New World\n The Clock We Live on\n The Collapsing Universe\n Colonizing the Planets and Stars\n Comets\n Comets and Meteors\n The Complete Robot (1982), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n The Complete Science Fair Handbook\n The Complete Stories Vol. 1\n The Complete Stories Vol. 2\n Computer Crimes and Capers\n Constantinople, the Forgotten Empire\n Cosmic Critiques: How and Why Ten Science Fiction Stories Work\n Cosmic Knights\n Counting the Eons\n Creations\n The Currents of Space\n Curses\n\nD\n The Dangers of Intelligence and Other Essays\n The Dark Ages\n David Starr, Space Ranger (as Paul French)\n The Death Dealers (later republished as A Whiff of Death)\n Devils\n Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?\n The Disappearing Man and Other Mysteries\n The Double Planet\n Dragon Tales\n The Dream, Benjamin's Dream & Benjamin's Bicentennial Blast\n\nE\n The Early Asimov\n Earth Is Room Enough\n Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship\n Earth: Our Home Base\n The Earth's Moon\n An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule\n The Edge of Tomorrow\n The Egyptians\n Election Day 2084: Science Fiction Stories on the Politics of the Future (edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg)\n Electricity and Man\n Encounters\n The End of Eternity\n The Ends of the Earth\n Environments Out There\n The Evitable Conflict\n The Exploding Suns\n Exploring the Earth and the Cosmos\n Extraterrestrial Civilizations\n Eyes on the Universe\n\nF\n Fact and Fancy\n Faeries\n Familiar Poems, Annotated\n Fantastic Creatures\n Fantastic Reading: Stories and Activities for Grades 5–8\n Fantastic Voyage\n Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain\n Far as Human Eye Could See\n Ferdinand Magellan: Opening the Door to World Exploration\n Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales\n Flying Saucers\n Forward the Foundation\n Foundation\n Foundation and Earth\n Foundation and Empire\n Foundation's Edge\n Franchise\n From Earth to Heaven\n Frontiers II: More Recent Discoveries about Life, Earth, Space, and the Universe\n Frontiers: New Discoveries about Man and His Planet, Outer Space and the Universe (essays originally published in The Los Angeles Times)\n The Future I (with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh)\n The Future in Question\n The Future in Space\n Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000 (1986) (based on En L'An 2000)\n\nG\n Galaxies\n The Genetic Code\n The Genetic Effects of Radiation\n Ghosts\n Giants\n Ginn Science Program (Advanced A, Advanced B, Intermediate A, Intermediate B, Intermediate C)\n The Gods Themselves\n Gold\n The Golden Door: The United States from 1865 to 1918\n Good Taste\n Great Ideas of Science\n Great Science Fiction Stories by the World's Great Scientists\n The Greeks: A Great Adventure\n A Grossery of Limericks (with John Ciardi)\n\nH\n Hallucination Orbit\n Have You Seen These?\n The Heavenly Host\n Henry Hudson: Arctic Explorer and North American Adventurer\n The History of Biology (chart)\n The History of Chemistry (chart)\n The History of Mathematics (chart)\n The History of Physics\n Hound Dunnit\n How Did We Find Out about (Our) Genes?\n How Did We Find Out about Antarctica?\n How Did We Find Out about Atoms?\n How Did We Find Out about Black Holes?\n How Did We Find Out about Blood?\n How Did We Find Out about Coal?\n How Did We Find Out about Comets?\n How Did We Find Out about Computers?\n How Did We Find Out about Dinosaurs?\n How Did We Find Out about DNA?\n How Did We Find Out about Earthquakes?\n How Did We Find Out about Electricity?\n How Did We Find Out about Energy?\n How Did We Find Out about Germs?\n How Did We Find Out about Lasers?\n How Did We Find Out about Life in the Deep Sea?\n How Did We Find Out about Microwaves?\n How Did We Find Out about Neptune?\n How Did We Find Out about Nuclear Power?\n How Did We Find Out about Numbers?\n How Did We Find Out about Oil?\n How Did We Find Out about Our Human Roots?\n How Did We Find Out about Outer Space?\n How Did We Find Out about Photosynthesis?\n How Did We Find Out about Pluto?\n How Did We Find Out about Robots?\n How Did We Find Out about Solar Power?\n How Did We Find Out about Sunshine?\n How Did We Find Out about Superconductivity?\n How Did We Find Out about the Atmosphere?\n How Did We Find Out about the Beginnings of Life?\n How Did We Find Out about the Brain?\n How Did We Find Out about the Speed of Light?\n How Did We Find Out about the Universe?\n How Did We Find Out about Vitamins\n How Did We Find Out about Volcanoes?\n How Did We Find Out the Earth Is Round?\n How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort\n How Was the Universe Born?\n The Hugo Winners\n The Hugo Winners Volume Two\n The Hugo Winners Volume Three\n The Hugo Winners Volume Four\n The Hugo Winners Volume Five\n The Human Body\n The Human Brain\n\nI\n I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay (with Harlan Ellison)\n I, Robot (1950), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n I. Asimov: A Memoir\n In Joy Still Felt\n In Memory Yet Green\n In the Beginning\n Inside the Atom\n Inside the Atom (3rd revised edition)\n The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science\n Intergalactic Empires\n Invasions\n Is Anyone There?\n Is Our Planet Warming Up?\n Is There Life on Other Planets?\n Isaac Asimov Presents from Harding to Hiroshima\n Isaac Asimov Presents Superquiz\n Isaac Asimov Presents Superquiz 2\n Isaac Asimov Presents Superquiz 3\n Isaac Asimov Presents Superquiz 4\n Isaac Asimov Presents Tales of the Occult\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Crime Stories of the 19th Century\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Fantasy of the 19th Century\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Horror and Supernatural Stories of the 19th Century\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Science Fiction Firsts\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Best Science Fiction of the 19th Century\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction: 36 Stories and Novellas\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Second Series\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Third Series\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Fourth Series\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Fifth Series\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Sixth Series\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 2 (1940)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 5 (1943)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 6 (1944)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 7 (1945)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 8 (1946)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 9 (1947)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 10 (1948)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 11 (1949)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 12 (1950)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 13 (1951)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 14 (1952)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 15 (1953)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 16 (1954)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 17 (1955)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 18 (1956)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 19 (1957)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 20 (1958)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 21 (1959)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 22 (1960)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 23 (1961)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 24 (1962)\n Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 25 (1963)\n Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts\n Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations\n Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space\n Isaac Asimov's Limericks for Children\n Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy Story-A-Month 1989 Calendar\n Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Treasury\n Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor\n It's Such a Beautiful Day\n\nJ\n Jupiter, the Largest Planet\n Jupiter, the Spotted Giant\n\nK\n The Key Word and Other Mysteries\n Kinetics of the Reaction Inactivation of Tyrosinase During Its Catalysis of the Aerobic Oxidation of Catechol (Asimov's doctoral dissertation)\n The Kingdom of the Sun (1960, history of astronomy)\n The Kite that Won the Revolution\n\nL\n The Land of Canaan\n The Last Man on Earth\n Laughing Space, with Janet Jeppson\n Lecherous Limericks\n The Left Hand of the Electron\n Library of the Universe (32 astronomy volumes, ages 9–12)\nAncient Astronomy\nThe Asteroids\nAstronomy Today\nThe Birth and Death of Stars\nColonizing the Planets and Stars\nComets and Meteors\nDid Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?\nEarth: Our Home Base\nThe Earth's Moon\nThe Future in Space\nHow Was The Universe Born?\nIs There Life on Other Planets?\nJupiter: The Spotted Giant\nMars: Our Mysterious Neighbor\nMercury: The Quick Planet\nMythology and the Universe\nNeptune: The Farthest Giant\nOur Milky Way and Other Galaxies\nOur Solar System\nPiloted Space Flights\nPluto: A Double Planet?\nQuasars, Pulsars and Black Holes\nRockets, Probes, and Satellites\nSaturn: The Ringed Beauty\nScience Fiction, Science Fact\nSpace Garbage\nThe Space Spotter's Guide\nThe Sun\nUnidentified Flying Objects\nUranus: The Sideways Planet\nVenus: A Shrouded Mystery\nThe World's Space Programs\n Life and Energy\n Life and Time\n Light\n Limericks: Too Gross, with John Ciardi\n Little Treasury of Dinosaurs (5 Vols.)\n Living in the Future\n The Living River (or The Bloodstream: River Of Life)\n Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury, as Paul French\n Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter, (as Paul French)\n Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, (as Paul French)\n Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids, (as Paul French)\n Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn, (as Paul French)\n\nM\n Machines That Think\n Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection\n Magical Wishes\n The Mammoth Book of Classic Science Fiction\n The Mammoth Book of Fantastic Science Fiction\n The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction\n The Mammoth Book of Modern Science Fiction\n The Mammoth Book of New World Science Fiction\n The Mammoth Book of Vintage Science Fiction\n The March of the Millennia: A Key to Looking at History\n Mars, the Red Planet\n Mars: Our Mysterious Neighbor\n Mars\n The Martian Way and Other Stories\n Measure of the Universe\n Mercury: The Quick Planet\n Microcosmic Tales\n Miniature Mysteries\n Monsters\n The Moon\n More Lecherous Limericks\n More Tales of the Black Widowers\n More Words of Science\n Murder at the ABA\n Murder on the Menu\n Mythical Beasties\n Mythology and the Universe\n\nN\n The Naked Sun (1957), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n The Near East: 10,000 Years of History\n Nebula Award Stories Eight\n Nemesis\n Neptune: The Farthest Giant\n The Neutrino\n The New Hugo Winners, Vol. 2\n The New Hugo Winners\n The New Intelligent Man's Guide to Science\n Nightfall (with Robert Silverberg)\n Nightfall and Other Stories\n Nine Tomorrows\n The Noble Gases, The\n Norby and the Court Jester\n Norby and the Invaders\n Norby and the Lost Princess\n Norby and the Oldest Dragon\n Norby and the Queen's Necklace\n Norby and Yobo's Great Adventure\n Norby Down to Earth\n Norby Finds a Villain\n Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot\n Norby's Other Secret\n\nO\n Of Matters Great and Small\n Of Time and Space and Other Things\n One Hundred Great Fantasy Short-Short Stories\n One Hundred Great Science Fiction Short-Short Stories\n Only a Trillion\n Opus 100\n Opus 200\n Opus 300\n Other Worlds of Isaac Asimov\n Our Angry Earth\n Our Federal Union: The United States from 1816 to 1865\n Our Milky Way and Other Galaxies\n Our Solar System\n Our World in Space\n Out of the Everywhere\n\nP\n Past, Present, and Future\n Pebble in the Sky\n Photosynthesis\n Piloted Space Flights\n The Planet That Wasn't\n Planets for Man (with Stephen H. Dole), Originally Habitable Planets for man.\n Please Explain\n Pluto: A Double Planet?\n The Positronic Man (1992, with Robert Silverberg), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Prelude to Foundation\n Purr-Fect Crime\n Puzzles of the Black Widowers\n\nQ\n Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright\n Quasars, Pulsars, and Black Holes\n Quick and Easy Math\n\nR\n Races and People\n Raintree Reading, Series 1\n Raintree Reading, Series 2\n Raintree Reading, Series 3\n Realm of Algebra\n Realm of Measure\n Realm of Numbers\n The Relativity of Wrong\n The Rest of the Robots\n The Return of the Black Widowers\n The Road to Infinity\n Robbie\n Robot Dreams (1986), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Robot Visions\n Robots\n Robots and Empire (1985), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Robots from Asimov's\n The Robots of Dawn (1983), See also Robot series (Asimov)\n Robots: Machines in Man's Image\n Rockets, Probes, and Satellites\n The Roman Empire\n The Roman Republic\n The Roving Mind\n\nS\n Sally\n Satellites in Outer Space\n Saturn and Beyond\n Saturn: The Ringed Beauty\n Science Fiction A to Z\n Science Fiction by Asimov\n The Science Fiction Weight-Loss Book\n Science Fiction, Science Fact\n The Science Fictional Olympics (edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Charles G Waugh)\n The Science Fictional Solar System (edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg and Charles G Waugh)\n Science Past—Science Future\n Science, Numbers and I\n The Search for the Elements\n Second Foundation\n The Secret of the Universe\n Senior Sleuths: A Large Print Anthology of Mysteries and Puzzlers\n The Sensuous Dirty Old Man\n Seven Cardinal Virtues of Science Fiction\n The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction\n The Shaping of England\n The Shaping of France\n The Shaping of North America: From Earliest Times to 1763\n Sherlock Holmes through Time and Space\n A Short History of Biology\n A Short History of Chemistry\n Show Business is Murder\n The Solar System and Back\n The Solar System\n Space Garbage\n Space Mail\n Space Mail, Volume II\n Space Shuttles\n The Space Spotter's Guide\n Speculations\n Spells\n The Sport of Crime\n The Stars in Their Courses\n The Stars, Like Dust\n Stars\n Starships\n Still More Lecherous Limericks\n The Story of Ruth 1972\n The Subatomic Monster\n The Sun\n The Sun Shines Bright\n Supermen\n The Science Fictional Solar System\n\nT\n Tales of the Black Widowers\n Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries\n Think about Space: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?\n The Thirteen Crimes of Science Fiction\n Thirteen Horrors of Halloween\n Those Amazing Electronic Thinking Machines\n Three by Asimov\n Through a Glass, Clearly\n Tin Stars\n To the Ends of the Universe\n Today and Tomorrow And--\n Tomorrow's Children\n Towards Tomorrow\n The Tragedy of the Moon\n TV: 2000\n The Twelve Crimes of Christmas\n The Twelve Frights of Christmas\n Twentieth Century Discovery\n The Tyrannosaurus Prescription and One Hundred Other Science Essays\n\nU\n The Ugly Little Boy (with Robert Silverberg)\n Understanding Physics, Volume One: Motion, Sound and Heat\t\n Understanding Physics, Volume Two: Light, Magnetism and Electricity\t\n Understanding Physics, Volume Three: The Electron, Proton, and Neutron\t\n Unidentified Flying Objects\n The Union Club Mysteries\n The Universe From Flat Earth to Quasar\n Uranus: The Sideways Planet\n\nV\n Venus, Near Neighbor of the Sun\n Venus: A Shrouded Mystery\n View from a Height\n Views of the Universe\n Visions of Fantasy: Tales from the Masters\n Visions of the Universe\n\nW\n The Wellsprings of Life\n What Causes Acid Rain?\n What Is a Shooting Star?\n What Is an Eclipse?\n What Makes the Sun Shine?\n What's Happening to the Ozone Layer?\n Where Do We Go from Here?\n Where Does Garbage Go?\n A Whiff of Death (originally published as The Death Dealers)\n Who Done It?\n Why Are Animals Endangered?\n Why Are Some Beaches Oily?\n Why Are the Rain Forests Vanishing?\n Why Are Whales Vanishing?\n Why Do Stars Twinkle?\n Why Do We Have Different Seasons?\n Why Does Litter Cause Problems?\n Why Does the Moon Change Shape?\n Why Is the Air Dirty?\n The Winds of Change and Other Stories\n Witches\n Wizards\n Words from History\n Words from the Exodus\n Words from the Myths\n Words in Genesis\n Words of Science and the History behind Them\n Words on the Map\n The World of Carbon\n The World of Nitrogen\n The World's Space Programs\n Worlds within Worlds\n\nX\n 'X' Stands for Unknown\n\nY\n Young Extraterrestrials\n Young Ghosts\n Young Monsters\n Young Mutants\n Young Star Travelers\n Young Witches and Warlocks\n Yours, Isaac Asimov\n Youth (Asimov short story)\n\nSee also\n Isaac Asimov bibliography (categorical)\n Isaac Asimov bibliography (chronological)\n Isaac Asimov book series bibliography\n Isaac Asimov short stories bibliography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Asimov Online\n \n The Fiction of Isaac Asimov - Part I and Part II at The Internet Time Travel Database\n Jenkins’ Spoiler-Laden Guide to Isaac Asimov\n \n\n \nBibliographies by writer\nBibliographies of American writers\nScience fiction bibliographies",
"The House Next Door is a stand-alone book that has three fictional stories in it.\n\nPlot\nThis book has three short stories in it. James Patterson writes each of the stories with one of the coauthors of the book.\n\nThe first story, \"The House Next Door\" (written by Patterson and Susan DiLallo), is about a family living next to a derelict house that has just been occupied by a mysterious man and his son. As the family and the neighbors get to know the house's new occupants, what they learn is truly frightening.\n\n\"The Killer's Wife,\" written by Patterson and Max DiLallo, is about a detective's quest to find what has happened to four girls who have gone missing. To do this he decides the only way to find them is to get on the good side of the wife of the man suspected of abducting them. He is knows he is walking a fine line and his plan could go all wrong.\n\n\"We.Are.Not.Alone.\" is written by Patterson and Tim Arnold. It's about a scientist who has been looking for alien life for years and who is no longer taken seriously. He one day gets a message from space proving intelligent aliens exist. While that's what he wanted, he quickly finds others suddenly want to seize him and whisk him away, so he runs for his life.\n\nReviews\nThe House Next Door did not immediately make The New York Times best sellers list. It did so as a mass market monthly book for the month of December 2019.\n\nReferences\n\n2019 short story collections"
]
|
[
"Benigno Aquino III",
"Senate bills"
]
| C_65c8ecbdaa424ccb80d723c5c0d3bd68_0 | What was a bill that Aquino introduced to the Senate? | 1 | What was a bill that Benigno Aquino III introduced to the Senate? | Benigno Aquino III | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (SB 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino is proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so the president would have to pass through Congress every time the president decides to impound part of the budget. Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem is Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures. Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act 9184. Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented, well-thought-out types of bills, among which were for: Philippine National Police reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates. However, none of these bills were passed into law. CANNOTANSWER | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act | Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. Before being elected president, Aquino was a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also served as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006.
The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he officially announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he would go on to win. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
Early life and education
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was born on February 8, 1960, at Far Eastern University Hospital in Sampaloc, Manila. He is the third of the five children of Benigno Aquino Jr., who was then the vice governor of Tarlac, and Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of a prominent Tarlac businessman. He has four sisters, namely: Maria "Ballsy" Elena, Aurora "Pinky" Corazon, Victoria "Viel" Elisa, and Kristina "Kris" Bernadette. He attended the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City for his elementary, high school, and college education. Aquino finished his Bachelor of Arts (major in economics) degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. He was one of the students of former professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He joined his family in their exile in the United States shortly thereafter. In September 1972, Aquino's father, who was then a senator and prominent opposition leader to President Ferdinand Marcos, was arrested for subversion. In August 1973, Aquino's father was brought before a military tribunal in Fort Bonifacio.
In 1980, after a series of heart attacks, Aquino's father was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States, where Aquino's family began a period of self-exile. In 1981, shortly after graduation, Aquino joined his family in the United States.
In 1983, after three years in exile in the United States, Aquino's family returned to the Philippines, shortly after the assassination of his father on August 21, 1983. He had a short tenure as a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, working as an assistant of the executive director of PBSP. He later joined Mondragon Industries Philippines, Inc. as an assistant Retail Sales Supervisor and assistant promotions manager for Nike Philippines.
From 1986 to 1992, during the presidency of his mother, Aquino joined the Intra-Strata Assurance Corporation, a company owned by his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., as vice president.
On August 28, 1987, eighteen months into the presidency of Aquino's mother, rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged an unsuccessful coup attempt, attempting to lay siege to Malacañang Palace. Aquino was two blocks from the palace when he came under fire. Three of Aquino's four security escorts were killed, and the last was wounded protecting him. He himself was hit by five bullets, one of which was embedded in his neck.
From 1993 to 1998, he worked for Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the sugar refinery in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita. He was employed as the executive assistant for administration from 1993 to 1996 and subsequently worked as manager for field services from 1996 to 1998.
In 1998, he was elected to the House of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac. He was subsequently re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th Congress of the Philippines.
Congressional career
Aquino was a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano "Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his paternal grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1943 to 1944; his maternal grandfather, José Cojuangco, was also a member of the House of Representatives; and his parents were Corazon Aquino, who served as the 11th president of the Philippines (1986–1992), and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Aquino was a member of the Liberal Party, where he held various positions such as secretary general and vice president for Luzon.
House of Representatives (1998–2007)
Aquino became a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on November 8, 2004, but relinquished the post on February 21, 2006, when Aquino joined his Liberal Party members in calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the Hello Garci scandal.
Aquino was also Chairman of the Board of the Central Luzon Congressional Caucus.
Senate (2007–2010)
Barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, to represent the 2nd district of Tarlac, due to term limits, Aquino was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in the 2007 Philippine midterm election on May 15, 2007, under the banner of the Genuine Opposition (GO), a coalition comprising a number of parties, including Aquino's own Liberal Party, seeking to curb attempts by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution. In Aquino's political ads, he was endorsed by his younger sister, television host Kris Aquino, and his mother, Corazon Aquino. Although a Roman Catholic, Aquino was endorsed by the pentecostal Jesus Is Lord Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in the Philippines. With more than votes, Aquino's tally was the sixth highest of the 37 candidates for the 12 vacant seats elected from the nation at large. Aquino assumed his new office on June 30, 2007.
During the campaign, Aquino reached out to his former political rival, Senator Gregorio Honasan, supporting his application for bail. Aquino told Job Tabada of Cebu Daily News, on March 5, 2007;
Aquino was referring to an unsuccessful coup attempt staged by rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan on August 28, 1987, in which Aquino was seriously injured.
Senate bills
The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (Senate Bill No. 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino was proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so that the president would have to pass a measure through Congress every time that they the chief executive had the impetus to impound part of the budget.
Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem was Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures.
Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) declaration regarding the validity of the NBN–ZTE deal corruption scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act No. 9184.
Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented bills, among which were Philippine National Police reform; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; and the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments.
2010 presidential campaign
On November 26, 2008, the Liberal Party elected Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for President of the Philippines in the then-upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Following the death and funeral of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, many people began calling on Aquino to run for President of the Philippines. This groundswell of support became known as the "Noynoy Phenomenon".
On August 27, 2009, Edgardo "Eddie" Roces, son of the late Chino Roces, publisher and owner of The Manila Times, and a group of lawyers and activists formed the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement (NAPM), a nationwide campaign to collect a million signatures in order to persuade Aquino to run for president, reminiscent of Roces' father, who on October 15, 1985, launched the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), collecting more than one million signatures nationwide and asking Aquino's mother to run against Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 presidential snap elections.
On September 1, 2009, at the Club Filipino, in a press conference, Senator Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, announced his withdrawal from the 2010 presidential race and expressed his support for Aquino, as the party standard-bearer instead. Aquino later stood side by side with Roxas, but did not make a public statement at the press conference. The next day, Aquino announced that he would be going on a "spiritual retreat" over the weekend to finalize his decision for the elections, visiting the Carmelite sisters in Zamboanga City, reminiscent of his mother's own soul-searching in 1985 before deciding to run for the elections the following year. He came back on September 9 to formally announce his candidacy. Almost two weeks later, Roxas pledged to run alongside Aquino as the Liberal Party standard-bearer for vice-president. The two men filed their respective certificates of candidacy for president and vice-president on November 28, 2009.
Fake psychiatric reports on Aquino's mental health began circulating online during the 90-day election campaign period from February 9 – May 8, 2010, Aquino received information that the first such report came from the wife of Nacionalista Party supporter and former National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) president Guido Delgado, a move Aquino claimed was made with "malicious intent". A second report came from an unidentified supporter of Senator Manny Villar, the Nacionalistas' leader and presidential candidate. Later presented by Delgado at a press conference, the psychiatric report was supposedly signed by Father Jaime C. Bulatao, S.J., PhD, a Jesuit priest, a professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist at the Ateneo de Manila University, taken when Aquino was finishing his bachelor's degree in economics at the university in 1979. It reportedly showed that Aquino suffered from depression and melancholia, the priest later denied writing the document at all. Another supposed psychiatric report that later surfaced claimed that Aquino suffered from major depressive disorder; the report's supposed author, Jesuit priest Father Carmelo A. Caluag II, denied writing any evaluations of Aquino. The university's psychology department later debunked the documents, with Aquino labelling them as another desperate effort by rivals to malign his reputation.
During the campaign, Senator Francis Escudero began endorsing Aquino as president and PDP–Laban standard-bearer Jejomar Binay, for Vice President, launching the Aquino–Binay campaign.
During the 2010 presidential election, held on May 10, 2010, in unofficial tallies, conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Aquino was the leading candidate in tallied votes for president, and in the official Congressional canvass, Aquino was the leading candidate in canvassed votes for president. Aquino was unofficially referred to at the time as "president-apparent" by the media.
On June 9, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in Quezon City, the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines, following the 2010 election with 15,208,678 votes, while Jejomar Binay, the former mayor of Makati, was proclaimed as the vice president-elect of the Philippines with 14,645,574 votes, defeating runner-up for the vice presidency Mar Roxas, the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for vice president.
Presidency (2010–2016)
Early years
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III began at noon on June 30, 2010, when he became the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. From the start of his presidency on, he was also referred to in the media as PNoy.
The presidential transition began on June 9, 2010, when the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino the winner of the 2010 Philippine presidential elections held on May 10, 2010, proclaiming Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines. The transition was in charge of the new presidential residence, cabinet appointments, and cordial meetings between themselves and the outgoing administration. Aquino took residence in the Bahay Pangarap, the first president to do so, instead of the Malacañang Palace, which has been the official residence of his predecessors.
Aquino also announced the formation of a truth commission that would investigate various issues including corruption allegations against his predecessor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as commission head.
Aquino took the oath of office on June 30, 2010, at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. The oath of office was administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who officially accepted Aquino's request to swear him into office, reminiscent of the decision of his mother, who in 1986, was sworn into the presidency by Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee. After being sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino delivered his inaugural address.
On July 26, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa, in Quezon City, Aquino delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). During Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA), Aquino announced his intention to reform the education system in the Philippines by shifting to K–12 education, a 12-year basic education cycle. K–12 education is used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. On July 29, 2015, Aquino delivered his final SONA address, where he discussed the country's economic improvements and the benefits of social service programs, particularly the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, during the course of his presidency.
Domestic policy
No wang wang policy
During the inaugural address, Aquino created the "no wang-wang" policy, strengthening the implementation of Presidential Decree No. 96. Wang-wang is colloquial term for blaring sirens. The decree was issued on January 13, 1973, by then President Ferdinand Marcos, regulating the use of sirens and other similar devices only to motor vehicles designated for the use of select national government officials, the police, the military, the fire department and ambulances. Despite having the privilege of using wang-wang as president, Aquino refrained from using sirens to set up an example for his policy, even if it means being stuck in traffic and being late every now and then. After the inaugural address, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority began to enforce Aquino's no wang-wang policy, confiscating wang-wang from public officials and private motorists who illegally used them.
Bangsamoro peace process
Aquino resumed stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group in Mindanao seeking self-determination for Moros. He met with the MILF in Tokyo, Japan in August 2011 to initiate peace talks which resulted to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and the rebel group the following year. The agreement started the process of replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new political entity. In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, with the deal characterized as a "final peace agreement" between the two parties.
The CAB paved way for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL; later known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL), a charter for a proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region which would replace the ARMM.
In 2015, President Aquino was accused of evading responsibility for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation, which resulted to the death of 44 Special Action Force officers. He was also criticized for entrusting the operation to suspended police chief Alan Purisima. This led to a decrease of public support for the BBL.
Education
Aquino introduced reforms on the Philippine education program by introducing the K-12 curriculum by signing into law the Enhanced Basic Education Act in 2013. This added two years to the basic education system; which became known as the Senior High School stage. The program was introduced because the Philippines was among the three countries in the world at that time still had a 10-year basic education program. Among the criticisms of the K-12 program is the associated costs to be shouldered by teachers, parents, and students for the additional two years of basic education as well as the lack of classrooms and teachers required for the implementation of the shift to K-12.
Foreign policy
Benigno Aquino III is noted for his confrontational foreign policy against China, especially concerning the Philippines' approach in pursuing its claims in the South China Sea. It was under his administration, that the China v. Philippines case was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in 2016 the invalidity of China's nine-dash line claim which covers the entire sea, although China continues to disregard the decision. The case was filed in 2013, after the Philippines lost control of the Scarborough Shoal after the 2012 standoff with China over the dispute feature. He is also responsible for instituting the term "West Philippine Sea" in 2012 for the eastern parts of the South China Sea which the Philippines claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone.
Criticism
Manila hostage crisis
On August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, the Manila hostage crisis occurred when a gunman took hostage a bus with Hong Kong tourists. Aquino defended the actions of the police at the scene, stating that the gunman had not shown any signs of wanting to kill the hostages. Aquino ordered a "thorough investigation" into the incident, and would wait until it is completed before deciding whether anyone should lose his or her job. Aquino declared that the media may have worsened the situation by giving the gunman "a bird's-eye view of the entire situation". Aquino also made reference to the Moscow theater hostage crisis, which, according to Aquino, resulted in "more severe" casualties despite Russia's "resources and sophistication". On August 24, 2010, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 23, declaring August 25, 2010, as a national day of mourning, instructing all public institutions nationwide and all Philippine embassies and consulates overseas to lower the Philippine flag at half-mast, in honor of the eight Hong Kong residents who died during the crisis. On August 25, 2010, at a press conference in Malacañang, Aquino apologized to those offended when he was caught on television apparently smiling while being interviewed at the crime scene hours after the Manila hostage crisis. Aquino said:
On September 3, 2010, Aquino took responsibility for the crisis. Aquino actually has direct supervision of the Philippine National Police, since Aquino had asked Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo to address other concerns, such as coming up with a comprehensive plan on delivering social services to and relocating informal settlers in coordination with the local governments. No formal apology for the crisis was made by Aquino until President Rodrigo Duterte formally apologized in 2018 as president of the Republic of the Philippines and in behalf of the people of the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
President Aquino's administration was criticised during and after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 for the government's "slow" response to aid the victims. This criticism resulted in countries like Canada providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the typhoon through non-governmental organizations and not the Philippine government.
Noynoying
Noynoying (pronounced noy-noy-YING or noy-NOY-ying) was a protest tactic in the form of a neologism that Aquino's critics used to question his work ethic, alleging his inaction on the issues of disaster response and rising oil prices. A play on the term planking and Aquino's nickname, Noynoying involved posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting his head on one hand, and doing nothing.
Cabinet
Sources:
Judicial appointments
Aquino appointed the following to the Supreme Court of the Philippines:
Maria Lourdes Sereno – August 13, 2010 (as Associate Justice); August 25, 2012 (as Chief Justice).
Bienvenido L. Reyes – August 16, 2011
Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe – September 16, 2011
Mario Victor F. Leonen – November 21, 2012
Francis H. Jardeleza – August 19, 2014
Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa – January 22, 2016
Post-presidency
Following the turnover ceremonies to his successor Rodrigo Duterte at Malacañang, Aquino returned to his parents' residence along Times Street, Quezon City. After leaving office, Aquino remained silent on the Duterte administration and rarely made public appearances. However, in November 2016, Aquino attended a concert at Rizal Park and joined protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos. In February 2017, Aquino commemorated the 31st anniversary of the People Power Revolution by marching to the People Power Monument and joining the protests against the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
Legal charges
In July 2017, criminal charges were filed against Aquino for usurpation of authority under the Revised Penal Code and violating anti-graft and corruption laws. Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales cited the involvement of then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima in the 2015 Mamasapano police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 Special Action Force members were killed. Under the Revised Penal Code, suspended public officials cannot perform their duties or interfere in government affairs. Aquino's former Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said that Aquino planned to file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the charges. On 22 August 2019, the Sandiganbayan dropped the charges against Aquino upon request from Ombudsman Samuel Martires, citing the rule that no president can be charged of inducing subordinates to follow orders.
In 2018, Aquino was indicted in a $1.35-billion criminal case involving a congressional approval to use state funds on major government projects.
Personal life
Aquino never married and had no children, making him the Philippines' first bachelor president. Aquino previously had a relationship with Shalani Soledad, a Valenzuela metropolitan councilor and niece of former Senator Francisco Tatad. In November 2010, Aquino confirmed that he and Soledad had ended their relationship. He had previously dated Korina Sanchez, Bernadette Sembrano, and Liz Uy. He was also in a relationship with Korean television host Grace Lee. Aquino had openly stated that he preferred younger women because he wanted to have children.
Aquino was also an enthusiast of shooting, billiards, and video games. Aquino did not drink alcoholic beverages but was a chain smoker. Aquino also said that he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking campaigns. Upon winning the election, Aquino received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama, who congratulated him and offered assistance to smoking cessation.
Although his official residence as president was Malacañang Palace, Aquino chose to reside in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace grounds, while in office.
Illness and death
Speculation surrounding Aquino's health began circulating in August 2019 after he was unable to attend the commemoration of his father's 36th death anniversary; however, his spokesperson Abigail Valte said that his illness then was "nothing serious". In November 2019, Aquino was reported to have suffered from pneumonia. A month after, he was confined at Makati Medical Center for an executive checkup and undisclosed routine procedures. Aquino was confined in an intensive care unit, although according to his spokesperson, he was never in critical condition and the accommodation was just to limit visitors. Senator Francis Pangilinan, who was Aquino's former food security czar, later stated that this confinement was due to a kidney malfunction. Pangilinan added that Aquino had also been suffering from hypertension and diabetes. Thereafter, Aquino regularly sought medical treatment for his condition. By May 2021, Aquino told Camille Elemia of Rappler that he was experiencing a loss of appetite and breathing difficulties. That same month, he reportedly underwent a cardiac surgery.
In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Aquino was found by his maidservant lying unconscious on his recliner at his home in West Triangle, Quezon City. He was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Capitol Medical Center in Diliman, where he was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. (PHT), that day (22:30 UTC of the previous day). The cause of death was stated as renal disease, secondary to diabetes. According to his personal chauffeur, Aquino was scheduled to undergo dialysis on June 21, but refused because he felt that his body was "weak". Another dialysis was planned the day prior to his death, but Aquino again turned it down for similar reasons. Aquino's former public works secretary, Rogelio Singson, stated that he also underwent angioplasty to prepare for a scheduled kidney transplantation; Aquino was in the process of searching for donors at the time of his death.
His remains were cremated on the day of his death and his ashes were buried adjacent to that of his parents at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on June 26, making him the first former Philippine president to have been cremated. Three Masses were held on June 25–26 at the Church of the Gesù at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University, where a public viewing was also held. Then-newly installed Manila Archbishop Jose Advincula blessed his remains, while his funeral mass was presided over by Lingayen–Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas (who also presided the requiem mass for Aquino's mother in 2009 when Villegas was Bishop of Balanga), with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David concelebrating. Aquino's grave marker is in the same style as his parents: a simple, grey marble plaque with his name, nickname, and the dates of birth and death inscribed in black.
A few hours after the announcement of Aquino's death, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a ten-day "period of national mourning" from June 24 to July 3. All national flags have been flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
The funeral rites of Aquino were covered by Radyo Katipunan, the radio arm of his alma mater, for the wake and Radio Television Malacañang for his burial.
Honors and awards
This is a list of honors and awards received by Benigno Aquino III.
Foreign honors
:
Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (June 2, 2015)
:
Collar of the Knightly Order pro merito Melitensi (March 4, 2015)
:
First Class of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (October 10, 2014)
:
Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great (March 23, 2012)
:
Collar of the Order of Independence (April 11, 2012)
National Honors:
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal. (February 17, 2011).
Honorary degrees
Fordham University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (September 19, 2011)
Centro Escolar University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (April 11, 2012)
Kasetsart University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics
University of the Philippines Diliman – Honorary doctoral degree in Law
Sophia University – Honorary doctoral degree in Law (December 13, 2014)
Tarlac State University – Honorary doctoral degree in Humanities (May 14, 2015)
Loyola Marymount University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree (February 17, 2016)
Recognitions
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 by Time
United States: City Council Resolution on welcoming the President to Chicago presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (May 6, 2015)
See also
Noynoying
Political positions of Benigno Aquino III
Presidency of Benigno Aquino III
Notes
References
External links
Official profile in the website of the Senate of the Philippines
Inaugural Address of President Benigno Aquino III | June 30, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's First State of the Nation Address | July 26, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's Second State of the Nation Address | July 25, 2011
President Aquino's speech before the United Nations General Assembly | September 24, 2010
1960 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
Benigno Aquino 3
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Children of presidents of the Philippines
Cojuangco family
Deaths from diabetes
Deaths from kidney failure
Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Tarlac
People from Quezon City
People from Tarlac
Candidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Scouting in the Philippines
Secretaries of the Interior and Local Government of the Philippines
Senators of the 14th Congress of the Philippines
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent | true | [
"Agapito \"Butz\" Aquino Aquino (May 20, 1939 – August 17, 2015) was a Senator of the Philippines, congressman from Makati and a part-time film and television actor. He was born to former senator Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and Aurora Aquino-Aquino. He was the brother of former senators Benigno S. Aquino Jr. and Tessie Aquino-Oreta, as well as the uncle of President Benigno S. Aquino III as well as Paolo Benigno \"Bam\" Aquino IV.\n\nEarly life\nAquino was born at May 20, 1939. His father is the former senator Benigno S. Aquino Sr. and his mother is Aurora Aquino. His siblings were Benigno S. \"Ninoy\" Aquino Jr., Paul Aquino, Maria Teresa Aquino-Oreta, Maria Gerarda Aquino, Maria Guadalupe Aquino and, Maria Aurora Aquino.\n\nEducation\nAgapito Aquino went to San Beda College for his elementary education. He then went to Ateneo de Manila University for his secondary education. For his tertiary education, he attended Mapua Institute of Technology.\n\nEarly career\nHe started out as an entrepreneur and was the President of Mofire Fiberglass Inc. from the 1970s until the 1980s. In that period, he wasn't interested in politics. He was said to be cynical about politics and believed that politics was a \"ballgame of the rich\". He started participating in politics when his brother Ninoy, was assassinated on August 21, 1983 at the Manila International Airport .\n\nPolitical career\nUnder the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Agapito was one of the founders of the August Twenty One Movement (ATOM), Coalition of Organizations for the Restoration of Democracy (CORD) and Bansang Nagkakaisa sa Diwa at Layunin (BANDILA). Jejomar Binay was also one of the founders of ATOM as a legal counselor. Agapito became close friends with Binay as co-founders.\n\nIn 1987, he was elected to be a Senator of the Philippines and continued to be part of Senate in his 2nd election in 1992. He then became part of the House of Representatives as the representative of the 2nd District of Makati in 1998. He continued to be as a representative until his 3rd term which ended in 2007. In addition, he also was the Deputy Speaker for Luzon from November 2000 to January 2001 and the Minority Floor Leader from January 2001 to June 2001. In 2010, he said to a Philippine Star Interview that he had plans in returning to the senate but after learning that his nephew, Benigno Aquino III, was one of the Liberal Party's candidate for presidency, he backed out and supported his nephew. On the same year, he ran for Mayor of Makati as an independent candidate but was unsuccessful. After which, he never again joined in any political position.\n\nHe was known for being an advocate of small farmers and of cooperative principles as he legislated the notable Magna Carta for Small Farmers, Seed Act, and the Cooperative Code of the Philippines.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n The Passionate Strangers (1966) - Julio Lazatin \n Impossible Dream (1973) - Atty. Barredo \n The Last Reunion (1978) - Japanese General\n\nTelevision series\nPalos (2008) - Mr. President of the Philippines\nI Heart You, Pare! (2011) - Mr. Henry Castillo\n\nDeath\nAquino died on August 17, 2015 while confined at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center, citing \"natural causes\", according to his nephew, Senator Bam Aquino. He was 76. His remains were cremated, brought to the Senate for a tribute on August 19, and laid to rest at St. Therese Columbarium in Pasay.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nFamily and relatives of Agapito Aquino\n\n1939 births\n2015 deaths\nAgapito\nKapampangan people\nMembers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Makati\nSenators of the 9th Congress of the Philippines\nSenators of the 8th Congress of the Philippines\nLaban ng Demokratikong Pilipino politicians\nPeople from San Juan, Metro Manila\nDeputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines\nMapúa University alumni\nFilipino Roman Catholics\nFilipino actors",
"The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (; NDAA 2022, Pub.L. 117-81) is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for fiscal year 2022. Analogous NDAAs have been passed annually for 60 years.\n\nHistory\nThe House of Representatives bill was introduced on July 2, 2021, by Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Markup began on July 28. 780 amendments were made during markup, which ended on August 31. A corresponding Senate bill, , was introduced on September 22.\n\nThe House approved their version of the bill in a 316 to 113 vote on September 23.\n\nThe Senate approved to move forward and consider the House's version of the NDAA instead of theirs on November 17, by a 84 to 15 vote. Conflict in the Senate lead the version of the bill introduced in the Senate, to be placed on hold, due to objections by Senator Marco Rubio over the attached amendment package. A compromise bill was created through a previously introduced Senate bill, S. 1605 on December 7, and the House passed it on the same day with bipartisan support, which removed some of the provisions in the Senate version of the NDAA bill. On December 15, the compromise bill was passed by the Senate in a 88–11 vote.\n\nPresident Joe Biden signed the NDAA 2022 into law on December 27, 2021.\n\nSee also\n National Defense Authorization Act\n Military budget of the United States\n2021 in United States politics and government\n\nReferences\n\nU.S. National Defense Authorization Acts\nActs of the 117th United States Congress"
]
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[
"Benigno Aquino III",
"Senate bills",
"What was a bill that Aquino introduced to the Senate?",
"The Budget Impoundment and Control Act"
]
| C_65c8ecbdaa424ccb80d723c5c0d3bd68_0 | When was that bill introduced? | 2 | When was The Budget Impoundment and Control Act by Benigno Aquino III introduced? | Benigno Aquino III | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (SB 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino is proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so the president would have to pass through Congress every time the president decides to impound part of the budget. Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem is Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures. Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act 9184. Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented, well-thought-out types of bills, among which were for: Philippine National Police reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates. However, none of these bills were passed into law. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. Before being elected president, Aquino was a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also served as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006.
The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he officially announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he would go on to win. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
Early life and education
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was born on February 8, 1960, at Far Eastern University Hospital in Sampaloc, Manila. He is the third of the five children of Benigno Aquino Jr., who was then the vice governor of Tarlac, and Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of a prominent Tarlac businessman. He has four sisters, namely: Maria "Ballsy" Elena, Aurora "Pinky" Corazon, Victoria "Viel" Elisa, and Kristina "Kris" Bernadette. He attended the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City for his elementary, high school, and college education. Aquino finished his Bachelor of Arts (major in economics) degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. He was one of the students of former professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He joined his family in their exile in the United States shortly thereafter. In September 1972, Aquino's father, who was then a senator and prominent opposition leader to President Ferdinand Marcos, was arrested for subversion. In August 1973, Aquino's father was brought before a military tribunal in Fort Bonifacio.
In 1980, after a series of heart attacks, Aquino's father was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States, where Aquino's family began a period of self-exile. In 1981, shortly after graduation, Aquino joined his family in the United States.
In 1983, after three years in exile in the United States, Aquino's family returned to the Philippines, shortly after the assassination of his father on August 21, 1983. He had a short tenure as a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, working as an assistant of the executive director of PBSP. He later joined Mondragon Industries Philippines, Inc. as an assistant Retail Sales Supervisor and assistant promotions manager for Nike Philippines.
From 1986 to 1992, during the presidency of his mother, Aquino joined the Intra-Strata Assurance Corporation, a company owned by his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., as vice president.
On August 28, 1987, eighteen months into the presidency of Aquino's mother, rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged an unsuccessful coup attempt, attempting to lay siege to Malacañang Palace. Aquino was two blocks from the palace when he came under fire. Three of Aquino's four security escorts were killed, and the last was wounded protecting him. He himself was hit by five bullets, one of which was embedded in his neck.
From 1993 to 1998, he worked for Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the sugar refinery in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita. He was employed as the executive assistant for administration from 1993 to 1996 and subsequently worked as manager for field services from 1996 to 1998.
In 1998, he was elected to the House of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac. He was subsequently re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th Congress of the Philippines.
Congressional career
Aquino was a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano "Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his paternal grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1943 to 1944; his maternal grandfather, José Cojuangco, was also a member of the House of Representatives; and his parents were Corazon Aquino, who served as the 11th president of the Philippines (1986–1992), and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Aquino was a member of the Liberal Party, where he held various positions such as secretary general and vice president for Luzon.
House of Representatives (1998–2007)
Aquino became a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on November 8, 2004, but relinquished the post on February 21, 2006, when Aquino joined his Liberal Party members in calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the Hello Garci scandal.
Aquino was also Chairman of the Board of the Central Luzon Congressional Caucus.
Senate (2007–2010)
Barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, to represent the 2nd district of Tarlac, due to term limits, Aquino was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in the 2007 Philippine midterm election on May 15, 2007, under the banner of the Genuine Opposition (GO), a coalition comprising a number of parties, including Aquino's own Liberal Party, seeking to curb attempts by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution. In Aquino's political ads, he was endorsed by his younger sister, television host Kris Aquino, and his mother, Corazon Aquino. Although a Roman Catholic, Aquino was endorsed by the pentecostal Jesus Is Lord Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in the Philippines. With more than votes, Aquino's tally was the sixth highest of the 37 candidates for the 12 vacant seats elected from the nation at large. Aquino assumed his new office on June 30, 2007.
During the campaign, Aquino reached out to his former political rival, Senator Gregorio Honasan, supporting his application for bail. Aquino told Job Tabada of Cebu Daily News, on March 5, 2007;
Aquino was referring to an unsuccessful coup attempt staged by rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan on August 28, 1987, in which Aquino was seriously injured.
Senate bills
The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (Senate Bill No. 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino was proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so that the president would have to pass a measure through Congress every time that they the chief executive had the impetus to impound part of the budget.
Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem was Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures.
Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) declaration regarding the validity of the NBN–ZTE deal corruption scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act No. 9184.
Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented bills, among which were Philippine National Police reform; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; and the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments.
2010 presidential campaign
On November 26, 2008, the Liberal Party elected Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for President of the Philippines in the then-upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Following the death and funeral of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, many people began calling on Aquino to run for President of the Philippines. This groundswell of support became known as the "Noynoy Phenomenon".
On August 27, 2009, Edgardo "Eddie" Roces, son of the late Chino Roces, publisher and owner of The Manila Times, and a group of lawyers and activists formed the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement (NAPM), a nationwide campaign to collect a million signatures in order to persuade Aquino to run for president, reminiscent of Roces' father, who on October 15, 1985, launched the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), collecting more than one million signatures nationwide and asking Aquino's mother to run against Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 presidential snap elections.
On September 1, 2009, at the Club Filipino, in a press conference, Senator Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, announced his withdrawal from the 2010 presidential race and expressed his support for Aquino, as the party standard-bearer instead. Aquino later stood side by side with Roxas, but did not make a public statement at the press conference. The next day, Aquino announced that he would be going on a "spiritual retreat" over the weekend to finalize his decision for the elections, visiting the Carmelite sisters in Zamboanga City, reminiscent of his mother's own soul-searching in 1985 before deciding to run for the elections the following year. He came back on September 9 to formally announce his candidacy. Almost two weeks later, Roxas pledged to run alongside Aquino as the Liberal Party standard-bearer for vice-president. The two men filed their respective certificates of candidacy for president and vice-president on November 28, 2009.
Fake psychiatric reports on Aquino's mental health began circulating online during the 90-day election campaign period from February 9 – May 8, 2010, Aquino received information that the first such report came from the wife of Nacionalista Party supporter and former National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) president Guido Delgado, a move Aquino claimed was made with "malicious intent". A second report came from an unidentified supporter of Senator Manny Villar, the Nacionalistas' leader and presidential candidate. Later presented by Delgado at a press conference, the psychiatric report was supposedly signed by Father Jaime C. Bulatao, S.J., PhD, a Jesuit priest, a professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist at the Ateneo de Manila University, taken when Aquino was finishing his bachelor's degree in economics at the university in 1979. It reportedly showed that Aquino suffered from depression and melancholia, the priest later denied writing the document at all. Another supposed psychiatric report that later surfaced claimed that Aquino suffered from major depressive disorder; the report's supposed author, Jesuit priest Father Carmelo A. Caluag II, denied writing any evaluations of Aquino. The university's psychology department later debunked the documents, with Aquino labelling them as another desperate effort by rivals to malign his reputation.
During the campaign, Senator Francis Escudero began endorsing Aquino as president and PDP–Laban standard-bearer Jejomar Binay, for Vice President, launching the Aquino–Binay campaign.
During the 2010 presidential election, held on May 10, 2010, in unofficial tallies, conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Aquino was the leading candidate in tallied votes for president, and in the official Congressional canvass, Aquino was the leading candidate in canvassed votes for president. Aquino was unofficially referred to at the time as "president-apparent" by the media.
On June 9, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in Quezon City, the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines, following the 2010 election with 15,208,678 votes, while Jejomar Binay, the former mayor of Makati, was proclaimed as the vice president-elect of the Philippines with 14,645,574 votes, defeating runner-up for the vice presidency Mar Roxas, the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for vice president.
Presidency (2010–2016)
Early years
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III began at noon on June 30, 2010, when he became the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. From the start of his presidency on, he was also referred to in the media as PNoy.
The presidential transition began on June 9, 2010, when the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino the winner of the 2010 Philippine presidential elections held on May 10, 2010, proclaiming Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines. The transition was in charge of the new presidential residence, cabinet appointments, and cordial meetings between themselves and the outgoing administration. Aquino took residence in the Bahay Pangarap, the first president to do so, instead of the Malacañang Palace, which has been the official residence of his predecessors.
Aquino also announced the formation of a truth commission that would investigate various issues including corruption allegations against his predecessor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as commission head.
Aquino took the oath of office on June 30, 2010, at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. The oath of office was administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who officially accepted Aquino's request to swear him into office, reminiscent of the decision of his mother, who in 1986, was sworn into the presidency by Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee. After being sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino delivered his inaugural address.
On July 26, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa, in Quezon City, Aquino delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). During Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA), Aquino announced his intention to reform the education system in the Philippines by shifting to K–12 education, a 12-year basic education cycle. K–12 education is used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. On July 29, 2015, Aquino delivered his final SONA address, where he discussed the country's economic improvements and the benefits of social service programs, particularly the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, during the course of his presidency.
Domestic policy
No wang wang policy
During the inaugural address, Aquino created the "no wang-wang" policy, strengthening the implementation of Presidential Decree No. 96. Wang-wang is colloquial term for blaring sirens. The decree was issued on January 13, 1973, by then President Ferdinand Marcos, regulating the use of sirens and other similar devices only to motor vehicles designated for the use of select national government officials, the police, the military, the fire department and ambulances. Despite having the privilege of using wang-wang as president, Aquino refrained from using sirens to set up an example for his policy, even if it means being stuck in traffic and being late every now and then. After the inaugural address, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority began to enforce Aquino's no wang-wang policy, confiscating wang-wang from public officials and private motorists who illegally used them.
Bangsamoro peace process
Aquino resumed stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group in Mindanao seeking self-determination for Moros. He met with the MILF in Tokyo, Japan in August 2011 to initiate peace talks which resulted to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and the rebel group the following year. The agreement started the process of replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new political entity. In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, with the deal characterized as a "final peace agreement" between the two parties.
The CAB paved way for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL; later known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL), a charter for a proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region which would replace the ARMM.
In 2015, President Aquino was accused of evading responsibility for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation, which resulted to the death of 44 Special Action Force officers. He was also criticized for entrusting the operation to suspended police chief Alan Purisima. This led to a decrease of public support for the BBL.
Education
Aquino introduced reforms on the Philippine education program by introducing the K-12 curriculum by signing into law the Enhanced Basic Education Act in 2013. This added two years to the basic education system; which became known as the Senior High School stage. The program was introduced because the Philippines was among the three countries in the world at that time still had a 10-year basic education program. Among the criticisms of the K-12 program is the associated costs to be shouldered by teachers, parents, and students for the additional two years of basic education as well as the lack of classrooms and teachers required for the implementation of the shift to K-12.
Foreign policy
Benigno Aquino III is noted for his confrontational foreign policy against China, especially concerning the Philippines' approach in pursuing its claims in the South China Sea. It was under his administration, that the China v. Philippines case was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in 2016 the invalidity of China's nine-dash line claim which covers the entire sea, although China continues to disregard the decision. The case was filed in 2013, after the Philippines lost control of the Scarborough Shoal after the 2012 standoff with China over the dispute feature. He is also responsible for instituting the term "West Philippine Sea" in 2012 for the eastern parts of the South China Sea which the Philippines claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone.
Criticism
Manila hostage crisis
On August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, the Manila hostage crisis occurred when a gunman took hostage a bus with Hong Kong tourists. Aquino defended the actions of the police at the scene, stating that the gunman had not shown any signs of wanting to kill the hostages. Aquino ordered a "thorough investigation" into the incident, and would wait until it is completed before deciding whether anyone should lose his or her job. Aquino declared that the media may have worsened the situation by giving the gunman "a bird's-eye view of the entire situation". Aquino also made reference to the Moscow theater hostage crisis, which, according to Aquino, resulted in "more severe" casualties despite Russia's "resources and sophistication". On August 24, 2010, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 23, declaring August 25, 2010, as a national day of mourning, instructing all public institutions nationwide and all Philippine embassies and consulates overseas to lower the Philippine flag at half-mast, in honor of the eight Hong Kong residents who died during the crisis. On August 25, 2010, at a press conference in Malacañang, Aquino apologized to those offended when he was caught on television apparently smiling while being interviewed at the crime scene hours after the Manila hostage crisis. Aquino said:
On September 3, 2010, Aquino took responsibility for the crisis. Aquino actually has direct supervision of the Philippine National Police, since Aquino had asked Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo to address other concerns, such as coming up with a comprehensive plan on delivering social services to and relocating informal settlers in coordination with the local governments. No formal apology for the crisis was made by Aquino until President Rodrigo Duterte formally apologized in 2018 as president of the Republic of the Philippines and in behalf of the people of the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
President Aquino's administration was criticised during and after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 for the government's "slow" response to aid the victims. This criticism resulted in countries like Canada providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the typhoon through non-governmental organizations and not the Philippine government.
Noynoying
Noynoying (pronounced noy-noy-YING or noy-NOY-ying) was a protest tactic in the form of a neologism that Aquino's critics used to question his work ethic, alleging his inaction on the issues of disaster response and rising oil prices. A play on the term planking and Aquino's nickname, Noynoying involved posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting his head on one hand, and doing nothing.
Cabinet
Sources:
Judicial appointments
Aquino appointed the following to the Supreme Court of the Philippines:
Maria Lourdes Sereno – August 13, 2010 (as Associate Justice); August 25, 2012 (as Chief Justice).
Bienvenido L. Reyes – August 16, 2011
Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe – September 16, 2011
Mario Victor F. Leonen – November 21, 2012
Francis H. Jardeleza – August 19, 2014
Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa – January 22, 2016
Post-presidency
Following the turnover ceremonies to his successor Rodrigo Duterte at Malacañang, Aquino returned to his parents' residence along Times Street, Quezon City. After leaving office, Aquino remained silent on the Duterte administration and rarely made public appearances. However, in November 2016, Aquino attended a concert at Rizal Park and joined protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos. In February 2017, Aquino commemorated the 31st anniversary of the People Power Revolution by marching to the People Power Monument and joining the protests against the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
Legal charges
In July 2017, criminal charges were filed against Aquino for usurpation of authority under the Revised Penal Code and violating anti-graft and corruption laws. Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales cited the involvement of then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima in the 2015 Mamasapano police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 Special Action Force members were killed. Under the Revised Penal Code, suspended public officials cannot perform their duties or interfere in government affairs. Aquino's former Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said that Aquino planned to file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the charges. On 22 August 2019, the Sandiganbayan dropped the charges against Aquino upon request from Ombudsman Samuel Martires, citing the rule that no president can be charged of inducing subordinates to follow orders.
In 2018, Aquino was indicted in a $1.35-billion criminal case involving a congressional approval to use state funds on major government projects.
Personal life
Aquino never married and had no children, making him the Philippines' first bachelor president. Aquino previously had a relationship with Shalani Soledad, a Valenzuela metropolitan councilor and niece of former Senator Francisco Tatad. In November 2010, Aquino confirmed that he and Soledad had ended their relationship. He had previously dated Korina Sanchez, Bernadette Sembrano, and Liz Uy. He was also in a relationship with Korean television host Grace Lee. Aquino had openly stated that he preferred younger women because he wanted to have children.
Aquino was also an enthusiast of shooting, billiards, and video games. Aquino did not drink alcoholic beverages but was a chain smoker. Aquino also said that he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking campaigns. Upon winning the election, Aquino received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama, who congratulated him and offered assistance to smoking cessation.
Although his official residence as president was Malacañang Palace, Aquino chose to reside in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace grounds, while in office.
Illness and death
Speculation surrounding Aquino's health began circulating in August 2019 after he was unable to attend the commemoration of his father's 36th death anniversary; however, his spokesperson Abigail Valte said that his illness then was "nothing serious". In November 2019, Aquino was reported to have suffered from pneumonia. A month after, he was confined at Makati Medical Center for an executive checkup and undisclosed routine procedures. Aquino was confined in an intensive care unit, although according to his spokesperson, he was never in critical condition and the accommodation was just to limit visitors. Senator Francis Pangilinan, who was Aquino's former food security czar, later stated that this confinement was due to a kidney malfunction. Pangilinan added that Aquino had also been suffering from hypertension and diabetes. Thereafter, Aquino regularly sought medical treatment for his condition. By May 2021, Aquino told Camille Elemia of Rappler that he was experiencing a loss of appetite and breathing difficulties. That same month, he reportedly underwent a cardiac surgery.
In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Aquino was found by his maidservant lying unconscious on his recliner at his home in West Triangle, Quezon City. He was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Capitol Medical Center in Diliman, where he was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. (PHT), that day (22:30 UTC of the previous day). The cause of death was stated as renal disease, secondary to diabetes. According to his personal chauffeur, Aquino was scheduled to undergo dialysis on June 21, but refused because he felt that his body was "weak". Another dialysis was planned the day prior to his death, but Aquino again turned it down for similar reasons. Aquino's former public works secretary, Rogelio Singson, stated that he also underwent angioplasty to prepare for a scheduled kidney transplantation; Aquino was in the process of searching for donors at the time of his death.
His remains were cremated on the day of his death and his ashes were buried adjacent to that of his parents at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on June 26, making him the first former Philippine president to have been cremated. Three Masses were held on June 25–26 at the Church of the Gesù at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University, where a public viewing was also held. Then-newly installed Manila Archbishop Jose Advincula blessed his remains, while his funeral mass was presided over by Lingayen–Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas (who also presided the requiem mass for Aquino's mother in 2009 when Villegas was Bishop of Balanga), with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David concelebrating. Aquino's grave marker is in the same style as his parents: a simple, grey marble plaque with his name, nickname, and the dates of birth and death inscribed in black.
A few hours after the announcement of Aquino's death, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a ten-day "period of national mourning" from June 24 to July 3. All national flags have been flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
The funeral rites of Aquino were covered by Radyo Katipunan, the radio arm of his alma mater, for the wake and Radio Television Malacañang for his burial.
Honors and awards
This is a list of honors and awards received by Benigno Aquino III.
Foreign honors
:
Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (June 2, 2015)
:
Collar of the Knightly Order pro merito Melitensi (March 4, 2015)
:
First Class of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (October 10, 2014)
:
Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great (March 23, 2012)
:
Collar of the Order of Independence (April 11, 2012)
National Honors:
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal. (February 17, 2011).
Honorary degrees
Fordham University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (September 19, 2011)
Centro Escolar University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (April 11, 2012)
Kasetsart University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics
University of the Philippines Diliman – Honorary doctoral degree in Law
Sophia University – Honorary doctoral degree in Law (December 13, 2014)
Tarlac State University – Honorary doctoral degree in Humanities (May 14, 2015)
Loyola Marymount University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree (February 17, 2016)
Recognitions
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 by Time
United States: City Council Resolution on welcoming the President to Chicago presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (May 6, 2015)
See also
Noynoying
Political positions of Benigno Aquino III
Presidency of Benigno Aquino III
Notes
References
External links
Official profile in the website of the Senate of the Philippines
Inaugural Address of President Benigno Aquino III | June 30, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's First State of the Nation Address | July 26, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's Second State of the Nation Address | July 25, 2011
President Aquino's speech before the United Nations General Assembly | September 24, 2010
1960 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
Benigno Aquino 3
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Children of presidents of the Philippines
Cojuangco family
Deaths from diabetes
Deaths from kidney failure
Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Tarlac
People from Quezon City
People from Tarlac
Candidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Scouting in the Philippines
Secretaries of the Interior and Local Government of the Philippines
Senators of the 14th Congress of the Philippines
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent | false | [
"The Constitution of Ireland has been amended 32 times since its adoption in 1937. Numerous other amendment bills have been introduced in Dáil Éireann but were not enacted. These include government bills passed by the Dáil and Seanad but rejected at referendum; bills which the government introduced but later decided not to proceed with; and the rest were private member's bills (PMBs), usually introduced by opposition TDs. No amendment PMBs passed second stage until 2015.\n\nList of amendments\n\nNotes\n\nMissing numbers\nA new bill to amend the constitution is usually named with the ordinal number next after that of the last amendment passed. Multiple pending bills will often use the same number, and be distinguished by year of introduction and/or a parenthetical number or description. However, if the government introduces multiple bills, these are numbered consecutively. There are several gaps in the numbering of passed amendments, corresponding to government bills which did not pass:\nTwelfth Amendments 12, 13, and 14, all relating to abortion, were put to referendums on the same day. The 12th was rejected while the 13th and 14th passed.\nTwenty-second Amendments 21, 22, 23, and 24 were introduced in the Dáil on the same day, with a view to being passed quickly through the Oireachtas. Three proved uncontroversial, but the 22nd was delayed after complaints from opposition parties. By the time the government decided not to proceed with the 22nd bill, the 23rd had passed at referendum.\nTwenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth After the 24th bill was rejected at referendum in 2001, the government decided not to re-use the number when introducing the 25th bill later that year. Similarly, after the 25th was rejected in 2002, the government's next amendment bill was numbered 26 rather than 25 or 24. By contrast, when the 28th amendment bill of 2008 was rejected at referendum, the government chose to re-use the number 28 for the amendment bill passed the following year.\nThirty-second The 32nd and 33rd bills were put to referendum on 4 October 2013; the 32nd was rejected while the 33rd was approved.\nThirty-fifth The government's 35th bill was rejected at a referendum on 22 May 2015. Government amendments 36 and 37 were passed in 2018. The 38th Amendment was a private member's bill introduced in 2016 with number 35, which had its number changed to 38 in 2019 after being accepted by the government, which was passed in May 2019.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nCitations\n\n \nIreland law-related lists\nRepublic of Ireland politics-related lists",
"The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of India, officially known as The Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Act, 1955, empowered the President to prescribe a time limit for a State Legislature to convey its views on proposed Central laws relating to the formation of new States and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States. The amendment also permitted the President to extend the prescribed limit, and prohibited any such bill from being introduced in Parliament until after the expiry of the prescribed or extended period. The 5th Amendment re-enacted the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution.\n\nText\nThe full text of Article 3 of the Constitution, before the 5th Amendment is given below:\n\nThe full text of the 5th Amendment is given below:\n\nProposal and enactment\nUnder the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution (relating to formation of new States and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States), no bill for the purpose of forming a new state, increasing or decreasing the area of any state or altering the boundaries or name of any state could be introduced in Parliament, unless the views of the State Legislatures concerned with respect to the provisions of the bill had been ascertained by the President. It was considered desirable that when a reference was made to the State Legislatures for the said purpose, the President should be able to prescribe the period within which the states should convey their views, and it should be open to the President to extend such period whenever he considered it necessary. It was also considered desirable to provide that the bill would not be introduced until after the expiry of such period. The 5th Amendment sought to amend the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution accordingly.\n\nThe original Article 3 was so drafted because of three main reasons; (a) When it was drafted, the Princely States had not been fully integrated, (b) There was also the possibility of reorganisation of states on linguistic basis; and (c) Constituent Assembly had foreseen that such reorganisation could not be postponed for long. Therefore, accordingly, Article 3 was incorporated in the Constitution providing for an easy and simple method for reorganisation of the states at any time.\n\nThe Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 1955 (Bill No. 60 of 1955) was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 21 November 1955. It was introduced by C.C. Biswas, then Minister of Law and Minority Affairs, and sought to amend Articles 3, 100, 101, 103, 148, 189, 190, 192, 276, 297, 311, 316 and 319 of the Constitution. However, the bill could not be taken up for consideration by the House and lapsed on the dissolution of the First Lok Sabha. The government decided to introduce a separate bill to expedite consideration and passing of the amendment to article 3, because it felt that the Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Bill would take a very long time to be disposed of, as it sought to amend several articles. In order to achieve this, the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 1955 (Bill No. 63 of 1955) which sought to amend article 3, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 28 November 1955, by C.C. Biswas. Clause 2 of this Bill, which sought to amend article 3, was exactly similar to the corresponding clause of the Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 1955. A motion to refer the Seventh Amendment Bill to the a Select Committee was moved on 30 November 1955. However, this motion failed to obtain the support of a special majority as required by the Rules of Procedure of the House.\n\nThe government then introduced the Constitution (Eighth Amendment) Bill, 1955 (Bill No. 73 of 1955), which sought to amend article 3. The new bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 9 December 1955, by H.V. Pataskar, then Minister of Legal Affairs, and sought to amend Article 3 of the Constitution. It was debated by the Lok Sabha on 12 and 13 December and passed in its original form on 13 December 1955. After being passed by the House, the Speaker substituted the bracket and words \"(Eighth Amendment)\" in clause I of the Bill by the brackets and words \"(Fifth Amendment)\", through a formal amendment. This Bill, as so changed, was considered and passed by the Rajya Sabha on 15 December 1955.\n\nThe Bill received assent from then President Rajendra Prasad on 24 December 1955, and was notified in The Gazette of India on 26 December 1955. The 5th Amendment came into force from 12 December 1956.\n\nSee also\nList of amendments of the Constitution of India\n\nReferences\n\n05\n1955 in India\n1955 in law\nNehru administration"
]
|
[
"Benigno Aquino III",
"Senate bills",
"What was a bill that Aquino introduced to the Senate?",
"The Budget Impoundment and Control Act",
"When was that bill introduced?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_65c8ecbdaa424ccb80d723c5c0d3bd68_0 | Was the bill successful? | 3 | Was The Budget Impoundment and Control Act by Benigno Aquino III successful? | Benigno Aquino III | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (SB 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino is proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so the president would have to pass through Congress every time the president decides to impound part of the budget. Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem is Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures. Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act 9184. Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented, well-thought-out types of bills, among which were for: Philippine National Police reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates. However, none of these bills were passed into law. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. Before being elected president, Aquino was a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also served as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006.
The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he officially announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he would go on to win. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
Early life and education
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was born on February 8, 1960, at Far Eastern University Hospital in Sampaloc, Manila. He is the third of the five children of Benigno Aquino Jr., who was then the vice governor of Tarlac, and Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of a prominent Tarlac businessman. He has four sisters, namely: Maria "Ballsy" Elena, Aurora "Pinky" Corazon, Victoria "Viel" Elisa, and Kristina "Kris" Bernadette. He attended the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City for his elementary, high school, and college education. Aquino finished his Bachelor of Arts (major in economics) degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. He was one of the students of former professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He joined his family in their exile in the United States shortly thereafter. In September 1972, Aquino's father, who was then a senator and prominent opposition leader to President Ferdinand Marcos, was arrested for subversion. In August 1973, Aquino's father was brought before a military tribunal in Fort Bonifacio.
In 1980, after a series of heart attacks, Aquino's father was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States, where Aquino's family began a period of self-exile. In 1981, shortly after graduation, Aquino joined his family in the United States.
In 1983, after three years in exile in the United States, Aquino's family returned to the Philippines, shortly after the assassination of his father on August 21, 1983. He had a short tenure as a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, working as an assistant of the executive director of PBSP. He later joined Mondragon Industries Philippines, Inc. as an assistant Retail Sales Supervisor and assistant promotions manager for Nike Philippines.
From 1986 to 1992, during the presidency of his mother, Aquino joined the Intra-Strata Assurance Corporation, a company owned by his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., as vice president.
On August 28, 1987, eighteen months into the presidency of Aquino's mother, rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged an unsuccessful coup attempt, attempting to lay siege to Malacañang Palace. Aquino was two blocks from the palace when he came under fire. Three of Aquino's four security escorts were killed, and the last was wounded protecting him. He himself was hit by five bullets, one of which was embedded in his neck.
From 1993 to 1998, he worked for Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the sugar refinery in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita. He was employed as the executive assistant for administration from 1993 to 1996 and subsequently worked as manager for field services from 1996 to 1998.
In 1998, he was elected to the House of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac. He was subsequently re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th Congress of the Philippines.
Congressional career
Aquino was a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano "Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his paternal grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1943 to 1944; his maternal grandfather, José Cojuangco, was also a member of the House of Representatives; and his parents were Corazon Aquino, who served as the 11th president of the Philippines (1986–1992), and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Aquino was a member of the Liberal Party, where he held various positions such as secretary general and vice president for Luzon.
House of Representatives (1998–2007)
Aquino became a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on November 8, 2004, but relinquished the post on February 21, 2006, when Aquino joined his Liberal Party members in calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the Hello Garci scandal.
Aquino was also Chairman of the Board of the Central Luzon Congressional Caucus.
Senate (2007–2010)
Barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, to represent the 2nd district of Tarlac, due to term limits, Aquino was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in the 2007 Philippine midterm election on May 15, 2007, under the banner of the Genuine Opposition (GO), a coalition comprising a number of parties, including Aquino's own Liberal Party, seeking to curb attempts by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution. In Aquino's political ads, he was endorsed by his younger sister, television host Kris Aquino, and his mother, Corazon Aquino. Although a Roman Catholic, Aquino was endorsed by the pentecostal Jesus Is Lord Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in the Philippines. With more than votes, Aquino's tally was the sixth highest of the 37 candidates for the 12 vacant seats elected from the nation at large. Aquino assumed his new office on June 30, 2007.
During the campaign, Aquino reached out to his former political rival, Senator Gregorio Honasan, supporting his application for bail. Aquino told Job Tabada of Cebu Daily News, on March 5, 2007;
Aquino was referring to an unsuccessful coup attempt staged by rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan on August 28, 1987, in which Aquino was seriously injured.
Senate bills
The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (Senate Bill No. 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino was proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so that the president would have to pass a measure through Congress every time that they the chief executive had the impetus to impound part of the budget.
Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem was Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures.
Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) declaration regarding the validity of the NBN–ZTE deal corruption scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act No. 9184.
Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented bills, among which were Philippine National Police reform; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; and the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments.
2010 presidential campaign
On November 26, 2008, the Liberal Party elected Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for President of the Philippines in the then-upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Following the death and funeral of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, many people began calling on Aquino to run for President of the Philippines. This groundswell of support became known as the "Noynoy Phenomenon".
On August 27, 2009, Edgardo "Eddie" Roces, son of the late Chino Roces, publisher and owner of The Manila Times, and a group of lawyers and activists formed the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement (NAPM), a nationwide campaign to collect a million signatures in order to persuade Aquino to run for president, reminiscent of Roces' father, who on October 15, 1985, launched the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), collecting more than one million signatures nationwide and asking Aquino's mother to run against Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 presidential snap elections.
On September 1, 2009, at the Club Filipino, in a press conference, Senator Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, announced his withdrawal from the 2010 presidential race and expressed his support for Aquino, as the party standard-bearer instead. Aquino later stood side by side with Roxas, but did not make a public statement at the press conference. The next day, Aquino announced that he would be going on a "spiritual retreat" over the weekend to finalize his decision for the elections, visiting the Carmelite sisters in Zamboanga City, reminiscent of his mother's own soul-searching in 1985 before deciding to run for the elections the following year. He came back on September 9 to formally announce his candidacy. Almost two weeks later, Roxas pledged to run alongside Aquino as the Liberal Party standard-bearer for vice-president. The two men filed their respective certificates of candidacy for president and vice-president on November 28, 2009.
Fake psychiatric reports on Aquino's mental health began circulating online during the 90-day election campaign period from February 9 – May 8, 2010, Aquino received information that the first such report came from the wife of Nacionalista Party supporter and former National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) president Guido Delgado, a move Aquino claimed was made with "malicious intent". A second report came from an unidentified supporter of Senator Manny Villar, the Nacionalistas' leader and presidential candidate. Later presented by Delgado at a press conference, the psychiatric report was supposedly signed by Father Jaime C. Bulatao, S.J., PhD, a Jesuit priest, a professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist at the Ateneo de Manila University, taken when Aquino was finishing his bachelor's degree in economics at the university in 1979. It reportedly showed that Aquino suffered from depression and melancholia, the priest later denied writing the document at all. Another supposed psychiatric report that later surfaced claimed that Aquino suffered from major depressive disorder; the report's supposed author, Jesuit priest Father Carmelo A. Caluag II, denied writing any evaluations of Aquino. The university's psychology department later debunked the documents, with Aquino labelling them as another desperate effort by rivals to malign his reputation.
During the campaign, Senator Francis Escudero began endorsing Aquino as president and PDP–Laban standard-bearer Jejomar Binay, for Vice President, launching the Aquino–Binay campaign.
During the 2010 presidential election, held on May 10, 2010, in unofficial tallies, conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Aquino was the leading candidate in tallied votes for president, and in the official Congressional canvass, Aquino was the leading candidate in canvassed votes for president. Aquino was unofficially referred to at the time as "president-apparent" by the media.
On June 9, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in Quezon City, the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines, following the 2010 election with 15,208,678 votes, while Jejomar Binay, the former mayor of Makati, was proclaimed as the vice president-elect of the Philippines with 14,645,574 votes, defeating runner-up for the vice presidency Mar Roxas, the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for vice president.
Presidency (2010–2016)
Early years
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III began at noon on June 30, 2010, when he became the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. From the start of his presidency on, he was also referred to in the media as PNoy.
The presidential transition began on June 9, 2010, when the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino the winner of the 2010 Philippine presidential elections held on May 10, 2010, proclaiming Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines. The transition was in charge of the new presidential residence, cabinet appointments, and cordial meetings between themselves and the outgoing administration. Aquino took residence in the Bahay Pangarap, the first president to do so, instead of the Malacañang Palace, which has been the official residence of his predecessors.
Aquino also announced the formation of a truth commission that would investigate various issues including corruption allegations against his predecessor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as commission head.
Aquino took the oath of office on June 30, 2010, at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. The oath of office was administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who officially accepted Aquino's request to swear him into office, reminiscent of the decision of his mother, who in 1986, was sworn into the presidency by Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee. After being sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino delivered his inaugural address.
On July 26, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa, in Quezon City, Aquino delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). During Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA), Aquino announced his intention to reform the education system in the Philippines by shifting to K–12 education, a 12-year basic education cycle. K–12 education is used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. On July 29, 2015, Aquino delivered his final SONA address, where he discussed the country's economic improvements and the benefits of social service programs, particularly the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, during the course of his presidency.
Domestic policy
No wang wang policy
During the inaugural address, Aquino created the "no wang-wang" policy, strengthening the implementation of Presidential Decree No. 96. Wang-wang is colloquial term for blaring sirens. The decree was issued on January 13, 1973, by then President Ferdinand Marcos, regulating the use of sirens and other similar devices only to motor vehicles designated for the use of select national government officials, the police, the military, the fire department and ambulances. Despite having the privilege of using wang-wang as president, Aquino refrained from using sirens to set up an example for his policy, even if it means being stuck in traffic and being late every now and then. After the inaugural address, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority began to enforce Aquino's no wang-wang policy, confiscating wang-wang from public officials and private motorists who illegally used them.
Bangsamoro peace process
Aquino resumed stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group in Mindanao seeking self-determination for Moros. He met with the MILF in Tokyo, Japan in August 2011 to initiate peace talks which resulted to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and the rebel group the following year. The agreement started the process of replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new political entity. In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, with the deal characterized as a "final peace agreement" between the two parties.
The CAB paved way for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL; later known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL), a charter for a proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region which would replace the ARMM.
In 2015, President Aquino was accused of evading responsibility for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation, which resulted to the death of 44 Special Action Force officers. He was also criticized for entrusting the operation to suspended police chief Alan Purisima. This led to a decrease of public support for the BBL.
Education
Aquino introduced reforms on the Philippine education program by introducing the K-12 curriculum by signing into law the Enhanced Basic Education Act in 2013. This added two years to the basic education system; which became known as the Senior High School stage. The program was introduced because the Philippines was among the three countries in the world at that time still had a 10-year basic education program. Among the criticisms of the K-12 program is the associated costs to be shouldered by teachers, parents, and students for the additional two years of basic education as well as the lack of classrooms and teachers required for the implementation of the shift to K-12.
Foreign policy
Benigno Aquino III is noted for his confrontational foreign policy against China, especially concerning the Philippines' approach in pursuing its claims in the South China Sea. It was under his administration, that the China v. Philippines case was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in 2016 the invalidity of China's nine-dash line claim which covers the entire sea, although China continues to disregard the decision. The case was filed in 2013, after the Philippines lost control of the Scarborough Shoal after the 2012 standoff with China over the dispute feature. He is also responsible for instituting the term "West Philippine Sea" in 2012 for the eastern parts of the South China Sea which the Philippines claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone.
Criticism
Manila hostage crisis
On August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, the Manila hostage crisis occurred when a gunman took hostage a bus with Hong Kong tourists. Aquino defended the actions of the police at the scene, stating that the gunman had not shown any signs of wanting to kill the hostages. Aquino ordered a "thorough investigation" into the incident, and would wait until it is completed before deciding whether anyone should lose his or her job. Aquino declared that the media may have worsened the situation by giving the gunman "a bird's-eye view of the entire situation". Aquino also made reference to the Moscow theater hostage crisis, which, according to Aquino, resulted in "more severe" casualties despite Russia's "resources and sophistication". On August 24, 2010, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 23, declaring August 25, 2010, as a national day of mourning, instructing all public institutions nationwide and all Philippine embassies and consulates overseas to lower the Philippine flag at half-mast, in honor of the eight Hong Kong residents who died during the crisis. On August 25, 2010, at a press conference in Malacañang, Aquino apologized to those offended when he was caught on television apparently smiling while being interviewed at the crime scene hours after the Manila hostage crisis. Aquino said:
On September 3, 2010, Aquino took responsibility for the crisis. Aquino actually has direct supervision of the Philippine National Police, since Aquino had asked Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo to address other concerns, such as coming up with a comprehensive plan on delivering social services to and relocating informal settlers in coordination with the local governments. No formal apology for the crisis was made by Aquino until President Rodrigo Duterte formally apologized in 2018 as president of the Republic of the Philippines and in behalf of the people of the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
President Aquino's administration was criticised during and after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 for the government's "slow" response to aid the victims. This criticism resulted in countries like Canada providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the typhoon through non-governmental organizations and not the Philippine government.
Noynoying
Noynoying (pronounced noy-noy-YING or noy-NOY-ying) was a protest tactic in the form of a neologism that Aquino's critics used to question his work ethic, alleging his inaction on the issues of disaster response and rising oil prices. A play on the term planking and Aquino's nickname, Noynoying involved posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting his head on one hand, and doing nothing.
Cabinet
Sources:
Judicial appointments
Aquino appointed the following to the Supreme Court of the Philippines:
Maria Lourdes Sereno – August 13, 2010 (as Associate Justice); August 25, 2012 (as Chief Justice).
Bienvenido L. Reyes – August 16, 2011
Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe – September 16, 2011
Mario Victor F. Leonen – November 21, 2012
Francis H. Jardeleza – August 19, 2014
Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa – January 22, 2016
Post-presidency
Following the turnover ceremonies to his successor Rodrigo Duterte at Malacañang, Aquino returned to his parents' residence along Times Street, Quezon City. After leaving office, Aquino remained silent on the Duterte administration and rarely made public appearances. However, in November 2016, Aquino attended a concert at Rizal Park and joined protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos. In February 2017, Aquino commemorated the 31st anniversary of the People Power Revolution by marching to the People Power Monument and joining the protests against the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
Legal charges
In July 2017, criminal charges were filed against Aquino for usurpation of authority under the Revised Penal Code and violating anti-graft and corruption laws. Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales cited the involvement of then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima in the 2015 Mamasapano police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 Special Action Force members were killed. Under the Revised Penal Code, suspended public officials cannot perform their duties or interfere in government affairs. Aquino's former Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said that Aquino planned to file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the charges. On 22 August 2019, the Sandiganbayan dropped the charges against Aquino upon request from Ombudsman Samuel Martires, citing the rule that no president can be charged of inducing subordinates to follow orders.
In 2018, Aquino was indicted in a $1.35-billion criminal case involving a congressional approval to use state funds on major government projects.
Personal life
Aquino never married and had no children, making him the Philippines' first bachelor president. Aquino previously had a relationship with Shalani Soledad, a Valenzuela metropolitan councilor and niece of former Senator Francisco Tatad. In November 2010, Aquino confirmed that he and Soledad had ended their relationship. He had previously dated Korina Sanchez, Bernadette Sembrano, and Liz Uy. He was also in a relationship with Korean television host Grace Lee. Aquino had openly stated that he preferred younger women because he wanted to have children.
Aquino was also an enthusiast of shooting, billiards, and video games. Aquino did not drink alcoholic beverages but was a chain smoker. Aquino also said that he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking campaigns. Upon winning the election, Aquino received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama, who congratulated him and offered assistance to smoking cessation.
Although his official residence as president was Malacañang Palace, Aquino chose to reside in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace grounds, while in office.
Illness and death
Speculation surrounding Aquino's health began circulating in August 2019 after he was unable to attend the commemoration of his father's 36th death anniversary; however, his spokesperson Abigail Valte said that his illness then was "nothing serious". In November 2019, Aquino was reported to have suffered from pneumonia. A month after, he was confined at Makati Medical Center for an executive checkup and undisclosed routine procedures. Aquino was confined in an intensive care unit, although according to his spokesperson, he was never in critical condition and the accommodation was just to limit visitors. Senator Francis Pangilinan, who was Aquino's former food security czar, later stated that this confinement was due to a kidney malfunction. Pangilinan added that Aquino had also been suffering from hypertension and diabetes. Thereafter, Aquino regularly sought medical treatment for his condition. By May 2021, Aquino told Camille Elemia of Rappler that he was experiencing a loss of appetite and breathing difficulties. That same month, he reportedly underwent a cardiac surgery.
In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Aquino was found by his maidservant lying unconscious on his recliner at his home in West Triangle, Quezon City. He was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Capitol Medical Center in Diliman, where he was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. (PHT), that day (22:30 UTC of the previous day). The cause of death was stated as renal disease, secondary to diabetes. According to his personal chauffeur, Aquino was scheduled to undergo dialysis on June 21, but refused because he felt that his body was "weak". Another dialysis was planned the day prior to his death, but Aquino again turned it down for similar reasons. Aquino's former public works secretary, Rogelio Singson, stated that he also underwent angioplasty to prepare for a scheduled kidney transplantation; Aquino was in the process of searching for donors at the time of his death.
His remains were cremated on the day of his death and his ashes were buried adjacent to that of his parents at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on June 26, making him the first former Philippine president to have been cremated. Three Masses were held on June 25–26 at the Church of the Gesù at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University, where a public viewing was also held. Then-newly installed Manila Archbishop Jose Advincula blessed his remains, while his funeral mass was presided over by Lingayen–Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas (who also presided the requiem mass for Aquino's mother in 2009 when Villegas was Bishop of Balanga), with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David concelebrating. Aquino's grave marker is in the same style as his parents: a simple, grey marble plaque with his name, nickname, and the dates of birth and death inscribed in black.
A few hours after the announcement of Aquino's death, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a ten-day "period of national mourning" from June 24 to July 3. All national flags have been flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
The funeral rites of Aquino were covered by Radyo Katipunan, the radio arm of his alma mater, for the wake and Radio Television Malacañang for his burial.
Honors and awards
This is a list of honors and awards received by Benigno Aquino III.
Foreign honors
:
Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (June 2, 2015)
:
Collar of the Knightly Order pro merito Melitensi (March 4, 2015)
:
First Class of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (October 10, 2014)
:
Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great (March 23, 2012)
:
Collar of the Order of Independence (April 11, 2012)
National Honors:
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal. (February 17, 2011).
Honorary degrees
Fordham University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (September 19, 2011)
Centro Escolar University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (April 11, 2012)
Kasetsart University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics
University of the Philippines Diliman – Honorary doctoral degree in Law
Sophia University – Honorary doctoral degree in Law (December 13, 2014)
Tarlac State University – Honorary doctoral degree in Humanities (May 14, 2015)
Loyola Marymount University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree (February 17, 2016)
Recognitions
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 by Time
United States: City Council Resolution on welcoming the President to Chicago presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (May 6, 2015)
See also
Noynoying
Political positions of Benigno Aquino III
Presidency of Benigno Aquino III
Notes
References
External links
Official profile in the website of the Senate of the Philippines
Inaugural Address of President Benigno Aquino III | June 30, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's First State of the Nation Address | July 26, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's Second State of the Nation Address | July 25, 2011
President Aquino's speech before the United Nations General Assembly | September 24, 2010
1960 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
Benigno Aquino 3
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Children of presidents of the Philippines
Cojuangco family
Deaths from diabetes
Deaths from kidney failure
Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Tarlac
People from Quezon City
People from Tarlac
Candidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Scouting in the Philippines
Secretaries of the Interior and Local Government of the Philippines
Senators of the 14th Congress of the Philippines
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent | false | [
"Mike Pisaturo (born April 14, 1963) is a former American politician, who served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002. He was the first openly homosexual man to serve in that body.\n\nHe first ran for election to the state house in 1994, but was defeated that year. He won election in 1996.\n\nIn 1997, he introduced the first bill that attempted to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Although the bill was defeated, he symbolically resubmitted it each year for the rest of his term. In 1998, he introduced the bill that successfully repealed the state's sodomy laws, as well as a successful bill to grant hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples; in 1999, he introduced a successful bill allowing residents of the state to designate any person, family member or not, as the planner of their funeral.\n\nIn 1999, he announced that he was considering a run for the United States Congress in the 2000 Congressional election, but later decided to run for another term in the state house. He won reelection to the state house in 2000.\n\nPisaturo was defeated in the 2002 election.\n\nFollowing the end of his term, he was elected as a city councillor in Cranston in 2004.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 births\nMembers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives\nRhode Island Democrats\nLGBT state legislators in Rhode Island\nGay politicians\nPoliticians from Cranston, Rhode Island\nLiving people\nLGBT city councillors from the United States",
"Q was a disco group formed in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. They released an album on Epic Records entitled Dancin' Man in 1977, which was successful. The group featured two members from Jaggerz, a hit-making group from the early 1970s. The title track from the album was released as a single and was successful in the US, becoming a Top 40 hit.\n\nCommercial success \nQ released a single, titled \"Dancin' Man,\" in Spring 1977 (the B side was entitled \"Love Pollution\"); spurred on by regional airplay and a full-page ad taken out in Billboard magazine, the single became a Top 30 hit in the US, peaking at number 23. In the UK, though not a national hit, in London the song reached number 8 on Capital Radio's 'Capital Countdown' Top 40 in May 1977.\n\nQ's debut album, also titled \"Dancin' Man,\" was less successful, reaching #140 on the Billboard 200. The group's second single, \"Sweet Summertime,\" stalled out at number 107 in the US, essentially rendering the group a one-hit wonder.\n\nMembers\nDon Garvin - guitar, vocals\nRobert Peckman - bass, vocals\nBill Thomas - keyboards, vocals\nBill Vogel - drums, vocals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Q -Pittsburgh Music History\n\nMusical groups from Pittsburgh\nAmerican disco groups"
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"The Budget Impoundment and Control Act",
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"Was the bill successful?",
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]
| C_65c8ecbdaa424ccb80d723c5c0d3bd68_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Benigno Aquino III and his senate bills other than The Budget Impoundment and Control act other than when the bill was introduced? | Benigno Aquino III | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (SB 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino is proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so the president would have to pass through Congress every time the president decides to impound part of the budget. Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem is Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures. Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act 9184. Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented, well-thought-out types of bills, among which were for: Philippine National Police reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates. However, none of these bills were passed into law. CANNOTANSWER | Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act | Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. Before being elected president, Aquino was a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also served as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006.
The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he officially announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he would go on to win. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
Early life and education
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was born on February 8, 1960, at Far Eastern University Hospital in Sampaloc, Manila. He is the third of the five children of Benigno Aquino Jr., who was then the vice governor of Tarlac, and Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of a prominent Tarlac businessman. He has four sisters, namely: Maria "Ballsy" Elena, Aurora "Pinky" Corazon, Victoria "Viel" Elisa, and Kristina "Kris" Bernadette. He attended the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City for his elementary, high school, and college education. Aquino finished his Bachelor of Arts (major in economics) degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. He was one of the students of former professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He joined his family in their exile in the United States shortly thereafter. In September 1972, Aquino's father, who was then a senator and prominent opposition leader to President Ferdinand Marcos, was arrested for subversion. In August 1973, Aquino's father was brought before a military tribunal in Fort Bonifacio.
In 1980, after a series of heart attacks, Aquino's father was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States, where Aquino's family began a period of self-exile. In 1981, shortly after graduation, Aquino joined his family in the United States.
In 1983, after three years in exile in the United States, Aquino's family returned to the Philippines, shortly after the assassination of his father on August 21, 1983. He had a short tenure as a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, working as an assistant of the executive director of PBSP. He later joined Mondragon Industries Philippines, Inc. as an assistant Retail Sales Supervisor and assistant promotions manager for Nike Philippines.
From 1986 to 1992, during the presidency of his mother, Aquino joined the Intra-Strata Assurance Corporation, a company owned by his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., as vice president.
On August 28, 1987, eighteen months into the presidency of Aquino's mother, rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged an unsuccessful coup attempt, attempting to lay siege to Malacañang Palace. Aquino was two blocks from the palace when he came under fire. Three of Aquino's four security escorts were killed, and the last was wounded protecting him. He himself was hit by five bullets, one of which was embedded in his neck.
From 1993 to 1998, he worked for Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the sugar refinery in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita. He was employed as the executive assistant for administration from 1993 to 1996 and subsequently worked as manager for field services from 1996 to 1998.
In 1998, he was elected to the House of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac. He was subsequently re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th Congress of the Philippines.
Congressional career
Aquino was a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano "Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his paternal grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1943 to 1944; his maternal grandfather, José Cojuangco, was also a member of the House of Representatives; and his parents were Corazon Aquino, who served as the 11th president of the Philippines (1986–1992), and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Aquino was a member of the Liberal Party, where he held various positions such as secretary general and vice president for Luzon.
House of Representatives (1998–2007)
Aquino became a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on November 8, 2004, but relinquished the post on February 21, 2006, when Aquino joined his Liberal Party members in calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the Hello Garci scandal.
Aquino was also Chairman of the Board of the Central Luzon Congressional Caucus.
Senate (2007–2010)
Barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, to represent the 2nd district of Tarlac, due to term limits, Aquino was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in the 2007 Philippine midterm election on May 15, 2007, under the banner of the Genuine Opposition (GO), a coalition comprising a number of parties, including Aquino's own Liberal Party, seeking to curb attempts by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution. In Aquino's political ads, he was endorsed by his younger sister, television host Kris Aquino, and his mother, Corazon Aquino. Although a Roman Catholic, Aquino was endorsed by the pentecostal Jesus Is Lord Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in the Philippines. With more than votes, Aquino's tally was the sixth highest of the 37 candidates for the 12 vacant seats elected from the nation at large. Aquino assumed his new office on June 30, 2007.
During the campaign, Aquino reached out to his former political rival, Senator Gregorio Honasan, supporting his application for bail. Aquino told Job Tabada of Cebu Daily News, on March 5, 2007;
Aquino was referring to an unsuccessful coup attempt staged by rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan on August 28, 1987, in which Aquino was seriously injured.
Senate bills
The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (Senate Bill No. 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino was proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so that the president would have to pass a measure through Congress every time that they the chief executive had the impetus to impound part of the budget.
Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem was Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures.
Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) declaration regarding the validity of the NBN–ZTE deal corruption scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act No. 9184.
Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented bills, among which were Philippine National Police reform; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; and the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments.
2010 presidential campaign
On November 26, 2008, the Liberal Party elected Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for President of the Philippines in the then-upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Following the death and funeral of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, many people began calling on Aquino to run for President of the Philippines. This groundswell of support became known as the "Noynoy Phenomenon".
On August 27, 2009, Edgardo "Eddie" Roces, son of the late Chino Roces, publisher and owner of The Manila Times, and a group of lawyers and activists formed the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement (NAPM), a nationwide campaign to collect a million signatures in order to persuade Aquino to run for president, reminiscent of Roces' father, who on October 15, 1985, launched the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), collecting more than one million signatures nationwide and asking Aquino's mother to run against Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 presidential snap elections.
On September 1, 2009, at the Club Filipino, in a press conference, Senator Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, announced his withdrawal from the 2010 presidential race and expressed his support for Aquino, as the party standard-bearer instead. Aquino later stood side by side with Roxas, but did not make a public statement at the press conference. The next day, Aquino announced that he would be going on a "spiritual retreat" over the weekend to finalize his decision for the elections, visiting the Carmelite sisters in Zamboanga City, reminiscent of his mother's own soul-searching in 1985 before deciding to run for the elections the following year. He came back on September 9 to formally announce his candidacy. Almost two weeks later, Roxas pledged to run alongside Aquino as the Liberal Party standard-bearer for vice-president. The two men filed their respective certificates of candidacy for president and vice-president on November 28, 2009.
Fake psychiatric reports on Aquino's mental health began circulating online during the 90-day election campaign period from February 9 – May 8, 2010, Aquino received information that the first such report came from the wife of Nacionalista Party supporter and former National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) president Guido Delgado, a move Aquino claimed was made with "malicious intent". A second report came from an unidentified supporter of Senator Manny Villar, the Nacionalistas' leader and presidential candidate. Later presented by Delgado at a press conference, the psychiatric report was supposedly signed by Father Jaime C. Bulatao, S.J., PhD, a Jesuit priest, a professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist at the Ateneo de Manila University, taken when Aquino was finishing his bachelor's degree in economics at the university in 1979. It reportedly showed that Aquino suffered from depression and melancholia, the priest later denied writing the document at all. Another supposed psychiatric report that later surfaced claimed that Aquino suffered from major depressive disorder; the report's supposed author, Jesuit priest Father Carmelo A. Caluag II, denied writing any evaluations of Aquino. The university's psychology department later debunked the documents, with Aquino labelling them as another desperate effort by rivals to malign his reputation.
During the campaign, Senator Francis Escudero began endorsing Aquino as president and PDP–Laban standard-bearer Jejomar Binay, for Vice President, launching the Aquino–Binay campaign.
During the 2010 presidential election, held on May 10, 2010, in unofficial tallies, conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Aquino was the leading candidate in tallied votes for president, and in the official Congressional canvass, Aquino was the leading candidate in canvassed votes for president. Aquino was unofficially referred to at the time as "president-apparent" by the media.
On June 9, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in Quezon City, the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines, following the 2010 election with 15,208,678 votes, while Jejomar Binay, the former mayor of Makati, was proclaimed as the vice president-elect of the Philippines with 14,645,574 votes, defeating runner-up for the vice presidency Mar Roxas, the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for vice president.
Presidency (2010–2016)
Early years
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III began at noon on June 30, 2010, when he became the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. From the start of his presidency on, he was also referred to in the media as PNoy.
The presidential transition began on June 9, 2010, when the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino the winner of the 2010 Philippine presidential elections held on May 10, 2010, proclaiming Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines. The transition was in charge of the new presidential residence, cabinet appointments, and cordial meetings between themselves and the outgoing administration. Aquino took residence in the Bahay Pangarap, the first president to do so, instead of the Malacañang Palace, which has been the official residence of his predecessors.
Aquino also announced the formation of a truth commission that would investigate various issues including corruption allegations against his predecessor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as commission head.
Aquino took the oath of office on June 30, 2010, at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. The oath of office was administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who officially accepted Aquino's request to swear him into office, reminiscent of the decision of his mother, who in 1986, was sworn into the presidency by Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee. After being sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino delivered his inaugural address.
On July 26, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa, in Quezon City, Aquino delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). During Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA), Aquino announced his intention to reform the education system in the Philippines by shifting to K–12 education, a 12-year basic education cycle. K–12 education is used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. On July 29, 2015, Aquino delivered his final SONA address, where he discussed the country's economic improvements and the benefits of social service programs, particularly the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, during the course of his presidency.
Domestic policy
No wang wang policy
During the inaugural address, Aquino created the "no wang-wang" policy, strengthening the implementation of Presidential Decree No. 96. Wang-wang is colloquial term for blaring sirens. The decree was issued on January 13, 1973, by then President Ferdinand Marcos, regulating the use of sirens and other similar devices only to motor vehicles designated for the use of select national government officials, the police, the military, the fire department and ambulances. Despite having the privilege of using wang-wang as president, Aquino refrained from using sirens to set up an example for his policy, even if it means being stuck in traffic and being late every now and then. After the inaugural address, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority began to enforce Aquino's no wang-wang policy, confiscating wang-wang from public officials and private motorists who illegally used them.
Bangsamoro peace process
Aquino resumed stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group in Mindanao seeking self-determination for Moros. He met with the MILF in Tokyo, Japan in August 2011 to initiate peace talks which resulted to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and the rebel group the following year. The agreement started the process of replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new political entity. In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, with the deal characterized as a "final peace agreement" between the two parties.
The CAB paved way for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL; later known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL), a charter for a proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region which would replace the ARMM.
In 2015, President Aquino was accused of evading responsibility for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation, which resulted to the death of 44 Special Action Force officers. He was also criticized for entrusting the operation to suspended police chief Alan Purisima. This led to a decrease of public support for the BBL.
Education
Aquino introduced reforms on the Philippine education program by introducing the K-12 curriculum by signing into law the Enhanced Basic Education Act in 2013. This added two years to the basic education system; which became known as the Senior High School stage. The program was introduced because the Philippines was among the three countries in the world at that time still had a 10-year basic education program. Among the criticisms of the K-12 program is the associated costs to be shouldered by teachers, parents, and students for the additional two years of basic education as well as the lack of classrooms and teachers required for the implementation of the shift to K-12.
Foreign policy
Benigno Aquino III is noted for his confrontational foreign policy against China, especially concerning the Philippines' approach in pursuing its claims in the South China Sea. It was under his administration, that the China v. Philippines case was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in 2016 the invalidity of China's nine-dash line claim which covers the entire sea, although China continues to disregard the decision. The case was filed in 2013, after the Philippines lost control of the Scarborough Shoal after the 2012 standoff with China over the dispute feature. He is also responsible for instituting the term "West Philippine Sea" in 2012 for the eastern parts of the South China Sea which the Philippines claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone.
Criticism
Manila hostage crisis
On August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, the Manila hostage crisis occurred when a gunman took hostage a bus with Hong Kong tourists. Aquino defended the actions of the police at the scene, stating that the gunman had not shown any signs of wanting to kill the hostages. Aquino ordered a "thorough investigation" into the incident, and would wait until it is completed before deciding whether anyone should lose his or her job. Aquino declared that the media may have worsened the situation by giving the gunman "a bird's-eye view of the entire situation". Aquino also made reference to the Moscow theater hostage crisis, which, according to Aquino, resulted in "more severe" casualties despite Russia's "resources and sophistication". On August 24, 2010, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 23, declaring August 25, 2010, as a national day of mourning, instructing all public institutions nationwide and all Philippine embassies and consulates overseas to lower the Philippine flag at half-mast, in honor of the eight Hong Kong residents who died during the crisis. On August 25, 2010, at a press conference in Malacañang, Aquino apologized to those offended when he was caught on television apparently smiling while being interviewed at the crime scene hours after the Manila hostage crisis. Aquino said:
On September 3, 2010, Aquino took responsibility for the crisis. Aquino actually has direct supervision of the Philippine National Police, since Aquino had asked Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo to address other concerns, such as coming up with a comprehensive plan on delivering social services to and relocating informal settlers in coordination with the local governments. No formal apology for the crisis was made by Aquino until President Rodrigo Duterte formally apologized in 2018 as president of the Republic of the Philippines and in behalf of the people of the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
President Aquino's administration was criticised during and after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 for the government's "slow" response to aid the victims. This criticism resulted in countries like Canada providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the typhoon through non-governmental organizations and not the Philippine government.
Noynoying
Noynoying (pronounced noy-noy-YING or noy-NOY-ying) was a protest tactic in the form of a neologism that Aquino's critics used to question his work ethic, alleging his inaction on the issues of disaster response and rising oil prices. A play on the term planking and Aquino's nickname, Noynoying involved posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting his head on one hand, and doing nothing.
Cabinet
Sources:
Judicial appointments
Aquino appointed the following to the Supreme Court of the Philippines:
Maria Lourdes Sereno – August 13, 2010 (as Associate Justice); August 25, 2012 (as Chief Justice).
Bienvenido L. Reyes – August 16, 2011
Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe – September 16, 2011
Mario Victor F. Leonen – November 21, 2012
Francis H. Jardeleza – August 19, 2014
Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa – January 22, 2016
Post-presidency
Following the turnover ceremonies to his successor Rodrigo Duterte at Malacañang, Aquino returned to his parents' residence along Times Street, Quezon City. After leaving office, Aquino remained silent on the Duterte administration and rarely made public appearances. However, in November 2016, Aquino attended a concert at Rizal Park and joined protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos. In February 2017, Aquino commemorated the 31st anniversary of the People Power Revolution by marching to the People Power Monument and joining the protests against the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
Legal charges
In July 2017, criminal charges were filed against Aquino for usurpation of authority under the Revised Penal Code and violating anti-graft and corruption laws. Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales cited the involvement of then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima in the 2015 Mamasapano police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 Special Action Force members were killed. Under the Revised Penal Code, suspended public officials cannot perform their duties or interfere in government affairs. Aquino's former Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said that Aquino planned to file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the charges. On 22 August 2019, the Sandiganbayan dropped the charges against Aquino upon request from Ombudsman Samuel Martires, citing the rule that no president can be charged of inducing subordinates to follow orders.
In 2018, Aquino was indicted in a $1.35-billion criminal case involving a congressional approval to use state funds on major government projects.
Personal life
Aquino never married and had no children, making him the Philippines' first bachelor president. Aquino previously had a relationship with Shalani Soledad, a Valenzuela metropolitan councilor and niece of former Senator Francisco Tatad. In November 2010, Aquino confirmed that he and Soledad had ended their relationship. He had previously dated Korina Sanchez, Bernadette Sembrano, and Liz Uy. He was also in a relationship with Korean television host Grace Lee. Aquino had openly stated that he preferred younger women because he wanted to have children.
Aquino was also an enthusiast of shooting, billiards, and video games. Aquino did not drink alcoholic beverages but was a chain smoker. Aquino also said that he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking campaigns. Upon winning the election, Aquino received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama, who congratulated him and offered assistance to smoking cessation.
Although his official residence as president was Malacañang Palace, Aquino chose to reside in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace grounds, while in office.
Illness and death
Speculation surrounding Aquino's health began circulating in August 2019 after he was unable to attend the commemoration of his father's 36th death anniversary; however, his spokesperson Abigail Valte said that his illness then was "nothing serious". In November 2019, Aquino was reported to have suffered from pneumonia. A month after, he was confined at Makati Medical Center for an executive checkup and undisclosed routine procedures. Aquino was confined in an intensive care unit, although according to his spokesperson, he was never in critical condition and the accommodation was just to limit visitors. Senator Francis Pangilinan, who was Aquino's former food security czar, later stated that this confinement was due to a kidney malfunction. Pangilinan added that Aquino had also been suffering from hypertension and diabetes. Thereafter, Aquino regularly sought medical treatment for his condition. By May 2021, Aquino told Camille Elemia of Rappler that he was experiencing a loss of appetite and breathing difficulties. That same month, he reportedly underwent a cardiac surgery.
In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Aquino was found by his maidservant lying unconscious on his recliner at his home in West Triangle, Quezon City. He was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Capitol Medical Center in Diliman, where he was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. (PHT), that day (22:30 UTC of the previous day). The cause of death was stated as renal disease, secondary to diabetes. According to his personal chauffeur, Aquino was scheduled to undergo dialysis on June 21, but refused because he felt that his body was "weak". Another dialysis was planned the day prior to his death, but Aquino again turned it down for similar reasons. Aquino's former public works secretary, Rogelio Singson, stated that he also underwent angioplasty to prepare for a scheduled kidney transplantation; Aquino was in the process of searching for donors at the time of his death.
His remains were cremated on the day of his death and his ashes were buried adjacent to that of his parents at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on June 26, making him the first former Philippine president to have been cremated. Three Masses were held on June 25–26 at the Church of the Gesù at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University, where a public viewing was also held. Then-newly installed Manila Archbishop Jose Advincula blessed his remains, while his funeral mass was presided over by Lingayen–Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas (who also presided the requiem mass for Aquino's mother in 2009 when Villegas was Bishop of Balanga), with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David concelebrating. Aquino's grave marker is in the same style as his parents: a simple, grey marble plaque with his name, nickname, and the dates of birth and death inscribed in black.
A few hours after the announcement of Aquino's death, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a ten-day "period of national mourning" from June 24 to July 3. All national flags have been flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
The funeral rites of Aquino were covered by Radyo Katipunan, the radio arm of his alma mater, for the wake and Radio Television Malacañang for his burial.
Honors and awards
This is a list of honors and awards received by Benigno Aquino III.
Foreign honors
:
Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (June 2, 2015)
:
Collar of the Knightly Order pro merito Melitensi (March 4, 2015)
:
First Class of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (October 10, 2014)
:
Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great (March 23, 2012)
:
Collar of the Order of Independence (April 11, 2012)
National Honors:
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal. (February 17, 2011).
Honorary degrees
Fordham University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (September 19, 2011)
Centro Escolar University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (April 11, 2012)
Kasetsart University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics
University of the Philippines Diliman – Honorary doctoral degree in Law
Sophia University – Honorary doctoral degree in Law (December 13, 2014)
Tarlac State University – Honorary doctoral degree in Humanities (May 14, 2015)
Loyola Marymount University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree (February 17, 2016)
Recognitions
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 by Time
United States: City Council Resolution on welcoming the President to Chicago presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (May 6, 2015)
See also
Noynoying
Political positions of Benigno Aquino III
Presidency of Benigno Aquino III
Notes
References
External links
Official profile in the website of the Senate of the Philippines
Inaugural Address of President Benigno Aquino III | June 30, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's First State of the Nation Address | July 26, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's Second State of the Nation Address | July 25, 2011
President Aquino's speech before the United Nations General Assembly | September 24, 2010
1960 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
Benigno Aquino 3
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Children of presidents of the Philippines
Cojuangco family
Deaths from diabetes
Deaths from kidney failure
Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Tarlac
People from Quezon City
People from Tarlac
Candidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Scouting in the Philippines
Secretaries of the Interior and Local Government of the Philippines
Senators of the 14th Congress of the Philippines
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent | true | [
"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"
]
|
[
"Benigno Aquino III",
"Senate bills",
"What was a bill that Aquino introduced to the Senate?",
"The Budget Impoundment and Control Act",
"When was that bill introduced?",
"I don't know.",
"Was the bill successful?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act"
]
| C_65c8ecbdaa424ccb80d723c5c0d3bd68_0 | Was that bill successful? | 5 | Was the Amending the Government Procurement Act bill successful? | Benigno Aquino III | The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (SB 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino is proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so the president would have to pass through Congress every time the president decides to impound part of the budget. Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem is Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures. Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act 9184. Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented, well-thought-out types of bills, among which were for: Philippine National Police reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates. However, none of these bills were passed into law. CANNOTANSWER | The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice declaration regarding the validity of the controversial NBN-ZTE scandal, | Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III (; February 8, 1960 – June 24, 2021), also known as Noynoy Aquino and colloquially as PNoy, was a Filipino politician who served as the 15th president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016. Before being elected president, Aquino was a member of the House of Representatives and Senate from 1998 to 2010, and also served as a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives from 2004 to 2006.
The son of politician Benigno Aquino Jr. and President Corazon Aquino, he was a fourth-generation politician as part of the Aquino family of Tarlac. On September 9, 2009, shortly after the death of his mother, he officially announced his candidacy in the 2010 presidential election, which he would go on to win. He was sworn into office as the 15th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2010, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. His presidency was marked by stabilizing and growing the nation's economy into its highest in decades, and the country was dubbed as a "Rising Tiger". Aquino is also credited for his confrontational foreign policy. His administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in an attempt to invalidate China's claims in the South China Sea and asserted his own country's claims in the area; the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Aquino received criticism for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force, and several other issues. His non-renewable term ended on June 30, 2016, and he was succeeded by Rodrigo Duterte. After leaving office, Aquino was the subject of legal actions over his role in the Mamasapano clash and for approval of a controversial budget project.
Early life and education
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III was born on February 8, 1960, at Far Eastern University Hospital in Sampaloc, Manila. He is the third of the five children of Benigno Aquino Jr., who was then the vice governor of Tarlac, and Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of a prominent Tarlac businessman. He has four sisters, namely: Maria "Ballsy" Elena, Aurora "Pinky" Corazon, Victoria "Viel" Elisa, and Kristina "Kris" Bernadette. He attended the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City for his elementary, high school, and college education. Aquino finished his Bachelor of Arts (major in economics) degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. He was one of the students of former professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He joined his family in their exile in the United States shortly thereafter. In September 1972, Aquino's father, who was then a senator and prominent opposition leader to President Ferdinand Marcos, was arrested for subversion. In August 1973, Aquino's father was brought before a military tribunal in Fort Bonifacio.
In 1980, after a series of heart attacks, Aquino's father was allowed to seek medical treatment in the United States, where Aquino's family began a period of self-exile. In 1981, shortly after graduation, Aquino joined his family in the United States.
In 1983, after three years in exile in the United States, Aquino's family returned to the Philippines, shortly after the assassination of his father on August 21, 1983. He had a short tenure as a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, working as an assistant of the executive director of PBSP. He later joined Mondragon Industries Philippines, Inc. as an assistant Retail Sales Supervisor and assistant promotions manager for Nike Philippines.
From 1986 to 1992, during the presidency of his mother, Aquino joined the Intra-Strata Assurance Corporation, a company owned by his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., as vice president.
On August 28, 1987, eighteen months into the presidency of Aquino's mother, rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan staged an unsuccessful coup attempt, attempting to lay siege to Malacañang Palace. Aquino was two blocks from the palace when he came under fire. Three of Aquino's four security escorts were killed, and the last was wounded protecting him. He himself was hit by five bullets, one of which was embedded in his neck.
From 1993 to 1998, he worked for Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the sugar refinery in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita. He was employed as the executive assistant for administration from 1993 to 1996 and subsequently worked as manager for field services from 1996 to 1998.
In 1998, he was elected to the House of Representatives as Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac. He was subsequently re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th Congress of the Philippines.
Congressional career
Aquino was a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano "Mianong" Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his paternal grandfather, Benigno Aquino Sr., served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 1943 to 1944; his maternal grandfather, José Cojuangco, was also a member of the House of Representatives; and his parents were Corazon Aquino, who served as the 11th president of the Philippines (1986–1992), and Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. Aquino was a member of the Liberal Party, where he held various positions such as secretary general and vice president for Luzon.
House of Representatives (1998–2007)
Aquino became a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on November 8, 2004, but relinquished the post on February 21, 2006, when Aquino joined his Liberal Party members in calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the Hello Garci scandal.
Aquino was also Chairman of the Board of the Central Luzon Congressional Caucus.
Senate (2007–2010)
Barred from running for re-election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, to represent the 2nd district of Tarlac, due to term limits, Aquino was elected to the Senate of the Philippines in the 2007 Philippine midterm election on May 15, 2007, under the banner of the Genuine Opposition (GO), a coalition comprising a number of parties, including Aquino's own Liberal Party, seeking to curb attempts by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution. In Aquino's political ads, he was endorsed by his younger sister, television host Kris Aquino, and his mother, Corazon Aquino. Although a Roman Catholic, Aquino was endorsed by the pentecostal Jesus Is Lord Church, one of the largest Protestant churches in the Philippines. With more than votes, Aquino's tally was the sixth highest of the 37 candidates for the 12 vacant seats elected from the nation at large. Aquino assumed his new office on June 30, 2007.
During the campaign, Aquino reached out to his former political rival, Senator Gregorio Honasan, supporting his application for bail. Aquino told Job Tabada of Cebu Daily News, on March 5, 2007;
Aquino was referring to an unsuccessful coup attempt staged by rebel soldiers led by Gregorio Honasan on August 28, 1987, in which Aquino was seriously injured.
Senate bills
The Budget Impoundment and Control Act (Senate Bill No. 3121), wherein "impoundment" refers to the power of the president to refuse the release of funds appropriated by the Congress of the Philippines, is another bill Aquino was proud of; he regretted, however, that such power has been used and abused by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a result of which abuse has been the significant emasculation of Congress' ability to check the president's authority. Aquino filed this bill so that the president would have to pass a measure through Congress every time that they the chief executive had the impetus to impound part of the budget.
Another significant Aquino contribution to the Philippines' corruption problem was Senate Bill 2035, which is the Preservation of Public Infrastructures bill, seeking to raise standards in the construction of all public infrastructures by penalizing contractors of defective infrastructures. The bill also requires the Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct periodic inspections of public infrastructures.
Aquino also pushed for the passage of the Amending the Government Procurement Act (SB 2160), which applies to all government procurement activities regardless of source of funds whether local or foreign; only treaties or international/executive agreements entered into by the government prior to its enactment shall be exempt from coverage. The bill was filed in light of the Department of Justice (DOJ) declaration regarding the validity of the NBN–ZTE deal corruption scandal, wherein its international aspect, as well as the fact that it was an executive agreement, was cited as one reason for its exemption from the procurement process stipulated in Republic Act No. 9184.
Focusing further on accountability in government appropriations and spending, Aquino filed other reform-oriented bills, among which were Philippine National Police reform; the banning of reappointment to the Judicial and Bar Council; and the prevention of reappointment and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments.
2010 presidential campaign
On November 26, 2008, the Liberal Party elected Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for President of the Philippines in the then-upcoming 2010 presidential elections.
Following the death and funeral of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino, many people began calling on Aquino to run for President of the Philippines. This groundswell of support became known as the "Noynoy Phenomenon".
On August 27, 2009, Edgardo "Eddie" Roces, son of the late Chino Roces, publisher and owner of The Manila Times, and a group of lawyers and activists formed the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement (NAPM), a nationwide campaign to collect a million signatures in order to persuade Aquino to run for president, reminiscent of Roces' father, who on October 15, 1985, launched the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), collecting more than one million signatures nationwide and asking Aquino's mother to run against Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 presidential snap elections.
On September 1, 2009, at the Club Filipino, in a press conference, Senator Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party, announced his withdrawal from the 2010 presidential race and expressed his support for Aquino, as the party standard-bearer instead. Aquino later stood side by side with Roxas, but did not make a public statement at the press conference. The next day, Aquino announced that he would be going on a "spiritual retreat" over the weekend to finalize his decision for the elections, visiting the Carmelite sisters in Zamboanga City, reminiscent of his mother's own soul-searching in 1985 before deciding to run for the elections the following year. He came back on September 9 to formally announce his candidacy. Almost two weeks later, Roxas pledged to run alongside Aquino as the Liberal Party standard-bearer for vice-president. The two men filed their respective certificates of candidacy for president and vice-president on November 28, 2009.
Fake psychiatric reports on Aquino's mental health began circulating online during the 90-day election campaign period from February 9 – May 8, 2010, Aquino received information that the first such report came from the wife of Nacionalista Party supporter and former National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) president Guido Delgado, a move Aquino claimed was made with "malicious intent". A second report came from an unidentified supporter of Senator Manny Villar, the Nacionalistas' leader and presidential candidate. Later presented by Delgado at a press conference, the psychiatric report was supposedly signed by Father Jaime C. Bulatao, S.J., PhD, a Jesuit priest, a professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist at the Ateneo de Manila University, taken when Aquino was finishing his bachelor's degree in economics at the university in 1979. It reportedly showed that Aquino suffered from depression and melancholia, the priest later denied writing the document at all. Another supposed psychiatric report that later surfaced claimed that Aquino suffered from major depressive disorder; the report's supposed author, Jesuit priest Father Carmelo A. Caluag II, denied writing any evaluations of Aquino. The university's psychology department later debunked the documents, with Aquino labelling them as another desperate effort by rivals to malign his reputation.
During the campaign, Senator Francis Escudero began endorsing Aquino as president and PDP–Laban standard-bearer Jejomar Binay, for Vice President, launching the Aquino–Binay campaign.
During the 2010 presidential election, held on May 10, 2010, in unofficial tallies, conducted by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Aquino was the leading candidate in tallied votes for president, and in the official Congressional canvass, Aquino was the leading candidate in canvassed votes for president. Aquino was unofficially referred to at the time as "president-apparent" by the media.
On June 9, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in Quezon City, the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines, following the 2010 election with 15,208,678 votes, while Jejomar Binay, the former mayor of Makati, was proclaimed as the vice president-elect of the Philippines with 14,645,574 votes, defeating runner-up for the vice presidency Mar Roxas, the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party for vice president.
Presidency (2010–2016)
Early years
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III began at noon on June 30, 2010, when he became the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. From the start of his presidency on, he was also referred to in the media as PNoy.
The presidential transition began on June 9, 2010, when the Congress of the Philippines proclaimed Aquino the winner of the 2010 Philippine presidential elections held on May 10, 2010, proclaiming Aquino as the president-elect of the Philippines. The transition was in charge of the new presidential residence, cabinet appointments, and cordial meetings between themselves and the outgoing administration. Aquino took residence in the Bahay Pangarap, the first president to do so, instead of the Malacañang Palace, which has been the official residence of his predecessors.
Aquino also announced the formation of a truth commission that would investigate various issues including corruption allegations against his predecessor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. as commission head.
Aquino took the oath of office on June 30, 2010, at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila. The oath of office was administered by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, who officially accepted Aquino's request to swear him into office, reminiscent of the decision of his mother, who in 1986, was sworn into the presidency by Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee. After being sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Philippines, succeeding Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aquino delivered his inaugural address.
On July 26, 2010, at the Batasang Pambansa, in Quezon City, Aquino delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). During Aquino's first State of the Nation Address (SONA), Aquino announced his intention to reform the education system in the Philippines by shifting to K–12 education, a 12-year basic education cycle. K–12 education is used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. On July 29, 2015, Aquino delivered his final SONA address, where he discussed the country's economic improvements and the benefits of social service programs, particularly the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, during the course of his presidency.
Domestic policy
No wang wang policy
During the inaugural address, Aquino created the "no wang-wang" policy, strengthening the implementation of Presidential Decree No. 96. Wang-wang is colloquial term for blaring sirens. The decree was issued on January 13, 1973, by then President Ferdinand Marcos, regulating the use of sirens and other similar devices only to motor vehicles designated for the use of select national government officials, the police, the military, the fire department and ambulances. Despite having the privilege of using wang-wang as president, Aquino refrained from using sirens to set up an example for his policy, even if it means being stuck in traffic and being late every now and then. After the inaugural address, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority began to enforce Aquino's no wang-wang policy, confiscating wang-wang from public officials and private motorists who illegally used them.
Bangsamoro peace process
Aquino resumed stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group in Mindanao seeking self-determination for Moros. He met with the MILF in Tokyo, Japan in August 2011 to initiate peace talks which resulted to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and the rebel group the following year. The agreement started the process of replacing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with a new political entity. In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) was signed between the Philippine government and the MILF, with the deal characterized as a "final peace agreement" between the two parties.
The CAB paved way for the drafting of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL; later known as the Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL), a charter for a proposed Bangsamoro autonomous region which would replace the ARMM.
In 2015, President Aquino was accused of evading responsibility for the Mamasapano clash, a botched police operation, which resulted to the death of 44 Special Action Force officers. He was also criticized for entrusting the operation to suspended police chief Alan Purisima. This led to a decrease of public support for the BBL.
Education
Aquino introduced reforms on the Philippine education program by introducing the K-12 curriculum by signing into law the Enhanced Basic Education Act in 2013. This added two years to the basic education system; which became known as the Senior High School stage. The program was introduced because the Philippines was among the three countries in the world at that time still had a 10-year basic education program. Among the criticisms of the K-12 program is the associated costs to be shouldered by teachers, parents, and students for the additional two years of basic education as well as the lack of classrooms and teachers required for the implementation of the shift to K-12.
Foreign policy
Benigno Aquino III is noted for his confrontational foreign policy against China, especially concerning the Philippines' approach in pursuing its claims in the South China Sea. It was under his administration, that the China v. Philippines case was filed in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which ruled in 2016 the invalidity of China's nine-dash line claim which covers the entire sea, although China continues to disregard the decision. The case was filed in 2013, after the Philippines lost control of the Scarborough Shoal after the 2012 standoff with China over the dispute feature. He is also responsible for instituting the term "West Philippine Sea" in 2012 for the eastern parts of the South China Sea which the Philippines claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone.
Criticism
Manila hostage crisis
On August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, the Manila hostage crisis occurred when a gunman took hostage a bus with Hong Kong tourists. Aquino defended the actions of the police at the scene, stating that the gunman had not shown any signs of wanting to kill the hostages. Aquino ordered a "thorough investigation" into the incident, and would wait until it is completed before deciding whether anyone should lose his or her job. Aquino declared that the media may have worsened the situation by giving the gunman "a bird's-eye view of the entire situation". Aquino also made reference to the Moscow theater hostage crisis, which, according to Aquino, resulted in "more severe" casualties despite Russia's "resources and sophistication". On August 24, 2010, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 23, declaring August 25, 2010, as a national day of mourning, instructing all public institutions nationwide and all Philippine embassies and consulates overseas to lower the Philippine flag at half-mast, in honor of the eight Hong Kong residents who died during the crisis. On August 25, 2010, at a press conference in Malacañang, Aquino apologized to those offended when he was caught on television apparently smiling while being interviewed at the crime scene hours after the Manila hostage crisis. Aquino said:
On September 3, 2010, Aquino took responsibility for the crisis. Aquino actually has direct supervision of the Philippine National Police, since Aquino had asked Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse Robredo to address other concerns, such as coming up with a comprehensive plan on delivering social services to and relocating informal settlers in coordination with the local governments. No formal apology for the crisis was made by Aquino until President Rodrigo Duterte formally apologized in 2018 as president of the Republic of the Philippines and in behalf of the people of the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)
President Aquino's administration was criticised during and after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in November 2013 for the government's "slow" response to aid the victims. This criticism resulted in countries like Canada providing humanitarian aid to the victims of the typhoon through non-governmental organizations and not the Philippine government.
Noynoying
Noynoying (pronounced noy-noy-YING or noy-NOY-ying) was a protest tactic in the form of a neologism that Aquino's critics used to question his work ethic, alleging his inaction on the issues of disaster response and rising oil prices. A play on the term planking and Aquino's nickname, Noynoying involved posing in a lazy manner, such as sitting idly while resting his head on one hand, and doing nothing.
Cabinet
Sources:
Judicial appointments
Aquino appointed the following to the Supreme Court of the Philippines:
Maria Lourdes Sereno – August 13, 2010 (as Associate Justice); August 25, 2012 (as Chief Justice).
Bienvenido L. Reyes – August 16, 2011
Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe – September 16, 2011
Mario Victor F. Leonen – November 21, 2012
Francis H. Jardeleza – August 19, 2014
Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa – January 22, 2016
Post-presidency
Following the turnover ceremonies to his successor Rodrigo Duterte at Malacañang, Aquino returned to his parents' residence along Times Street, Quezon City. After leaving office, Aquino remained silent on the Duterte administration and rarely made public appearances. However, in November 2016, Aquino attended a concert at Rizal Park and joined protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos. In February 2017, Aquino commemorated the 31st anniversary of the People Power Revolution by marching to the People Power Monument and joining the protests against the Ferdinand Marcos regime.
Legal charges
In July 2017, criminal charges were filed against Aquino for usurpation of authority under the Revised Penal Code and violating anti-graft and corruption laws. Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales cited the involvement of then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima in the 2015 Mamasapano police operation against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, where 44 Special Action Force members were killed. Under the Revised Penal Code, suspended public officials cannot perform their duties or interfere in government affairs. Aquino's former Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said that Aquino planned to file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the charges. On 22 August 2019, the Sandiganbayan dropped the charges against Aquino upon request from Ombudsman Samuel Martires, citing the rule that no president can be charged of inducing subordinates to follow orders.
In 2018, Aquino was indicted in a $1.35-billion criminal case involving a congressional approval to use state funds on major government projects.
Personal life
Aquino never married and had no children, making him the Philippines' first bachelor president. Aquino previously had a relationship with Shalani Soledad, a Valenzuela metropolitan councilor and niece of former Senator Francisco Tatad. In November 2010, Aquino confirmed that he and Soledad had ended their relationship. He had previously dated Korina Sanchez, Bernadette Sembrano, and Liz Uy. He was also in a relationship with Korean television host Grace Lee. Aquino had openly stated that he preferred younger women because he wanted to have children.
Aquino was also an enthusiast of shooting, billiards, and video games. Aquino did not drink alcoholic beverages but was a chain smoker. Aquino also said that he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking campaigns. Upon winning the election, Aquino received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama, who congratulated him and offered assistance to smoking cessation.
Although his official residence as president was Malacañang Palace, Aquino chose to reside in the Bahay Pangarap (House of Dreams), located within the Palace grounds, while in office.
Illness and death
Speculation surrounding Aquino's health began circulating in August 2019 after he was unable to attend the commemoration of his father's 36th death anniversary; however, his spokesperson Abigail Valte said that his illness then was "nothing serious". In November 2019, Aquino was reported to have suffered from pneumonia. A month after, he was confined at Makati Medical Center for an executive checkup and undisclosed routine procedures. Aquino was confined in an intensive care unit, although according to his spokesperson, he was never in critical condition and the accommodation was just to limit visitors. Senator Francis Pangilinan, who was Aquino's former food security czar, later stated that this confinement was due to a kidney malfunction. Pangilinan added that Aquino had also been suffering from hypertension and diabetes. Thereafter, Aquino regularly sought medical treatment for his condition. By May 2021, Aquino told Camille Elemia of Rappler that he was experiencing a loss of appetite and breathing difficulties. That same month, he reportedly underwent a cardiac surgery.
In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Aquino was found by his maidservant lying unconscious on his recliner at his home in West Triangle, Quezon City. He was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Capitol Medical Center in Diliman, where he was pronounced dead at 6:30 a.m. (PHT), that day (22:30 UTC of the previous day). The cause of death was stated as renal disease, secondary to diabetes. According to his personal chauffeur, Aquino was scheduled to undergo dialysis on June 21, but refused because he felt that his body was "weak". Another dialysis was planned the day prior to his death, but Aquino again turned it down for similar reasons. Aquino's former public works secretary, Rogelio Singson, stated that he also underwent angioplasty to prepare for a scheduled kidney transplantation; Aquino was in the process of searching for donors at the time of his death.
His remains were cremated on the day of his death and his ashes were buried adjacent to that of his parents at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on June 26, making him the first former Philippine president to have been cremated. Three Masses were held on June 25–26 at the Church of the Gesù at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University, where a public viewing was also held. Then-newly installed Manila Archbishop Jose Advincula blessed his remains, while his funeral mass was presided over by Lingayen–Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas (who also presided the requiem mass for Aquino's mother in 2009 when Villegas was Bishop of Balanga), with Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David concelebrating. Aquino's grave marker is in the same style as his parents: a simple, grey marble plaque with his name, nickname, and the dates of birth and death inscribed in black.
A few hours after the announcement of Aquino's death, President Rodrigo Duterte declared a ten-day "period of national mourning" from June 24 to July 3. All national flags have been flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
The funeral rites of Aquino were covered by Radyo Katipunan, the radio arm of his alma mater, for the wake and Radio Television Malacañang for his burial.
Honors and awards
This is a list of honors and awards received by Benigno Aquino III.
Foreign honors
:
Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (June 2, 2015)
:
Collar of the Knightly Order pro merito Melitensi (March 4, 2015)
:
First Class of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (October 10, 2014)
:
Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great (March 23, 2012)
:
Collar of the Order of Independence (April 11, 2012)
National Honors:
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal. (February 17, 2011).
Honorary degrees
Fordham University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (September 19, 2011)
Centro Escolar University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics (April 11, 2012)
Kasetsart University – Honorary doctoral degree in Economics
University of the Philippines Diliman – Honorary doctoral degree in Law
Sophia University – Honorary doctoral degree in Law (December 13, 2014)
Tarlac State University – Honorary doctoral degree in Humanities (May 14, 2015)
Loyola Marymount University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree (February 17, 2016)
Recognitions
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 by Time
United States: City Council Resolution on welcoming the President to Chicago presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (May 6, 2015)
See also
Noynoying
Political positions of Benigno Aquino III
Presidency of Benigno Aquino III
Notes
References
External links
Official profile in the website of the Senate of the Philippines
Inaugural Address of President Benigno Aquino III | June 30, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's First State of the Nation Address | July 26, 2010
President Benigno Aquino III's Second State of the Nation Address | July 25, 2011
President Aquino's speech before the United Nations General Assembly | September 24, 2010
1960 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
Benigno Aquino 3
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Burials at the Manila Memorial Park – Sucat
Children of presidents of the Philippines
Cojuangco family
Deaths from diabetes
Deaths from kidney failure
Deputy Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Philippines
Filipino Roman Catholics
Kapampangan people
Liberal Party (Philippines) politicians
Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Tarlac
People from Quezon City
People from Tarlac
Candidates in the 2010 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Scouting in the Philippines
Secretaries of the Interior and Local Government of the Philippines
Senators of the 14th Congress of the Philippines
Filipino politicians of Chinese descent | false | [
"Mike Pisaturo (born April 14, 1963) is a former American politician, who served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002. He was the first openly homosexual man to serve in that body.\n\nHe first ran for election to the state house in 1994, but was defeated that year. He won election in 1996.\n\nIn 1997, he introduced the first bill that attempted to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Although the bill was defeated, he symbolically resubmitted it each year for the rest of his term. In 1998, he introduced the bill that successfully repealed the state's sodomy laws, as well as a successful bill to grant hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples; in 1999, he introduced a successful bill allowing residents of the state to designate any person, family member or not, as the planner of their funeral.\n\nIn 1999, he announced that he was considering a run for the United States Congress in the 2000 Congressional election, but later decided to run for another term in the state house. He won reelection to the state house in 2000.\n\nPisaturo was defeated in the 2002 election.\n\nFollowing the end of his term, he was elected as a city councillor in Cranston in 2004.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 births\nMembers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives\nRhode Island Democrats\nLGBT state legislators in Rhode Island\nGay politicians\nPoliticians from Cranston, Rhode Island\nLiving people\nLGBT city councillors from the United States",
"Meredith Strang Burgess (born April 27, 1956) is an American politician from Maine. A Republican, Strang Burgess served three terms (2006-2012) in the Maine House of Representatives, representing the town of Cumberland.\n\nStrang Burgess was a co-sponsor of the successful 2009 same-sex marriage bill. The bill was repealed via people's veto in November of that year. Three years later, in 2012, Strang Burgess was one of three sitting Republican state legislators to support the successful state referendum legalizing same sex marriage.\n\nIn December 2013, Strang Burgess was rumored to be a potential candidate for U.S. Congress.\n\nReferences\n\n1956 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Rockland, Maine\nPeople from Cumberland, Maine\nUniversity of Maine alumni\nWomen state legislators in Maine\nMembers of the Maine House of Representatives\nMaine Republicans"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches"
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches? | 1 | When did Steffi Graf start her post career exhibition matches? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"The Graf–Seles rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Steffi Graf and Monica Seles, who competed in 15 matches between 1989 and 1999. Seles, a left-handed player, demonstrated powerful and precise hitting from the baseline on both wings and an exceptional return of serve. Graf, in contrast, had a formidable forehand, in addition to her penetrating serve, first rate foot speed, and mostly sliced her backhand.\n\nTheir rivalry was especially notable for its change over time. Graf was dominant on tour in Seles' first years, then Seles was dominant at the Grand Slams winning three of the four matches they played between the ages of 17 and 19. During the period where Seles first reached the No. 1 spot in 1991, the head-to-head saw Graf leading 3–2, with all of their matches coming in tournament finals. In April 1993, the rivalry was temporarily halted when a fan of Graf stabbed Seles on-court, prompting her to take a hiatus after recovering. Graf won four of their five matches from 1995 onward.\n\nList of all matches\n\nGraf–Seles (10–5)\n\nBreakdown of the rivalry \nHard courts: Graf, 3–2\nClay courts: Equal, 3–3\nGrass courts: Graf, 2–0\nCarpet courts: Graf, 2–0\nGrand Slam matches: Graf, 6–4\nGrand Slam finals: Equal, 3–3\nYear-End Championships matches: Graf, 1–0\nYear-End Championships finals: None\nFed Cup matches: None\nAll finals: Graf, 6–4\nAll matches: Graf, 10–5\n\nWTA Rankings\n\nYear-end ranking timeline\n\nHistory \nGraf won eight of nine majors before Seles won her first. Seles surpassed Graf as the No. 1 player in March 1991, and won seven of eight grand slam titles during the period of 1991–1993. The two traded the number one ranking through the summer of 1991 before Seles consolidated her hold on the top spot. Graf in the end did recapture the No. 1 ranking from Seles in June 1993, after Seles was forced out of the sport due to her stabbing.\n\nNotable matches \n\n1992 French Open Final: Seles made an excellent start, Graf recovered, Graf saved six championship points before Seles won an epic struggle by 10–8 in the third set, to win her third consecutive French Open Women's Singles title. This match was voted the best women's match of the 20th Century.\n\n1992 Wimbledon Final: Graf easily defeated Seles 6–2, 6–1, in a one-sided final. The match was notable for Seles refusing to grunt after massive media criticism of her grunting in the days before, and for constant rain delays during the second set.\n\n1993 Australian Open Final: A high quality final where Seles came from a set behind to defeat Graf and win her third consecutive Australian Open Women's Singles title.\n\n1995 US Open Final: The first post-stabbing match between Seles and Graf. Graf won a close final in three sets, despite losing the second set 0–6.\n\n1996 US Open Final: Graf won 7–5, 6–4, with Graf playing at the peak of her powers. The match was more one-sided than the scoreline suggested. The end of the match and the trophy ceremony saw pouring rain.\n\n1998 Chase Championship Quarter Final: Graf recovered from a poor start to win a close match 1–6, 6–4, 6–4.\n\n1999 Australian Open Quarter Final: Seles won 7–5, 6–1, and finished the match strongly, for her only post-stabbing victory over Graf.\n\n1999 French Open Semi Final: Graf defeated Seles in a three-set match after coming from a set behind. This was their last ever head-to-head match. Graf went on to win the title.\n\nSee also\nList of tennis rivalries\n1993 Citizen Cup\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n profiles at WTA site\n Head to Head record\n\nTennis rivalries\nSteffi Graf",
"The Graf–Sabatini rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini, who played each other on 40 occasions between 1985 and 1995. Graf was the world No. 1, while Sabatini reached a career high of No. 3. Both are Major champions, Graf winning 22 titles whilst Sabatini won her only major title at the 1990 US Open over Graf. They also teamed up in doubles to reach three French Open finals and win the 1988 Wimbledon crown.\n\nIn Grand Slams, they met 12 times, three of them in finals. Graf leads 11–1. In 1988, Graf beat Sabatini in the semifinals of the French Open, the US Open final, and the Olympic final to complete the calendar-year Golden Slam. Their most famous match came in the 1991 Wimbledon final. Sabatini was two points away from capturing her Wimbledon singles crown, only for Graf to fight back and take the match 8–6 in the deciding set.\n\nGraf and Sabatini first met in 1985 and by the end of 1987 had met a total of eleven times, Graf winning all of them. Sabatini went on to defeat Graf 11 times in the next 21 matches they played between 1988 and 1992, with the Argentine going on a five-match winning streak and Graf on a four-match winning streak. Sabatini then lost the final eight matches they played between 1992 and 1995, and for the first three of those Sabatini only won six games. According to Sabatini, they had a good relationship off the court, but were never close friends.\n\nOn September 25, 2004, Graf defeated Sabatini 6-1, 7-5 in an exhibition match in Berlin, Germany. They met the following year at an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany on October 15, 2005, where Graf again beat Sabatini in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.\n\nGraf introduced Sabatini during the 2006 International Tennis Hall of Fame Induction on July 15, 2006.\n\nList of all matches\n\nGraf–Sabatini (29–11)\n\nBreakdown of the rivalry \nHard courts: Graf, 11–5\nClay courts: Graf, 10–4\nGrass courts: Graf, 3–0\nCarpet courts: Graf, 5–2\nGrand Slam matches: Graf, 11–1\nGrand Slam finals: Graf, 2–1\nYear-End Championships matches: Graf, 3–1\nYear-End Championships finals: Graf, 1–0\nFed Cup matches: Graf, 1–0\nAll finals: Graf, 10–6\nAll matches: Graf, 29–11\n\nSee also\nList of tennis rivalries\n\nReferences\n\nTennis rivalries\nSteffi Graf"
]
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"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,"
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches? | 2 | Who did Steffi Graf play for in her 1999-2000 exhibition matches? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | false | [
"The Graf–Sabatini rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini, who played each other on 40 occasions between 1985 and 1995. Graf was the world No. 1, while Sabatini reached a career high of No. 3. Both are Major champions, Graf winning 22 titles whilst Sabatini won her only major title at the 1990 US Open over Graf. They also teamed up in doubles to reach three French Open finals and win the 1988 Wimbledon crown.\n\nIn Grand Slams, they met 12 times, three of them in finals. Graf leads 11–1. In 1988, Graf beat Sabatini in the semifinals of the French Open, the US Open final, and the Olympic final to complete the calendar-year Golden Slam. Their most famous match came in the 1991 Wimbledon final. Sabatini was two points away from capturing her Wimbledon singles crown, only for Graf to fight back and take the match 8–6 in the deciding set.\n\nGraf and Sabatini first met in 1985 and by the end of 1987 had met a total of eleven times, Graf winning all of them. Sabatini went on to defeat Graf 11 times in the next 21 matches they played between 1988 and 1992, with the Argentine going on a five-match winning streak and Graf on a four-match winning streak. Sabatini then lost the final eight matches they played between 1992 and 1995, and for the first three of those Sabatini only won six games. According to Sabatini, they had a good relationship off the court, but were never close friends.\n\nOn September 25, 2004, Graf defeated Sabatini 6-1, 7-5 in an exhibition match in Berlin, Germany. They met the following year at an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany on October 15, 2005, where Graf again beat Sabatini in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.\n\nGraf introduced Sabatini during the 2006 International Tennis Hall of Fame Induction on July 15, 2006.\n\nList of all matches\n\nGraf–Sabatini (29–11)\n\nBreakdown of the rivalry \nHard courts: Graf, 11–5\nClay courts: Graf, 10–4\nGrass courts: Graf, 3–0\nCarpet courts: Graf, 5–2\nGrand Slam matches: Graf, 11–1\nGrand Slam finals: Graf, 2–1\nYear-End Championships matches: Graf, 3–1\nYear-End Championships finals: Graf, 1–0\nFed Cup matches: Graf, 1–0\nAll finals: Graf, 10–6\nAll matches: Graf, 29–11\n\nSee also\nList of tennis rivalries\n\nReferences\n\nTennis rivalries\nSteffi Graf",
"The Graf–Seles rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Steffi Graf and Monica Seles, who competed in 15 matches between 1989 and 1999. Seles, a left-handed player, demonstrated powerful and precise hitting from the baseline on both wings and an exceptional return of serve. Graf, in contrast, had a formidable forehand, in addition to her penetrating serve, first rate foot speed, and mostly sliced her backhand.\n\nTheir rivalry was especially notable for its change over time. Graf was dominant on tour in Seles' first years, then Seles was dominant at the Grand Slams winning three of the four matches they played between the ages of 17 and 19. During the period where Seles first reached the No. 1 spot in 1991, the head-to-head saw Graf leading 3–2, with all of their matches coming in tournament finals. In April 1993, the rivalry was temporarily halted when a fan of Graf stabbed Seles on-court, prompting her to take a hiatus after recovering. Graf won four of their five matches from 1995 onward.\n\nList of all matches\n\nGraf–Seles (10–5)\n\nBreakdown of the rivalry \nHard courts: Graf, 3–2\nClay courts: Equal, 3–3\nGrass courts: Graf, 2–0\nCarpet courts: Graf, 2–0\nGrand Slam matches: Graf, 6–4\nGrand Slam finals: Equal, 3–3\nYear-End Championships matches: Graf, 1–0\nYear-End Championships finals: None\nFed Cup matches: None\nAll finals: Graf, 6–4\nAll matches: Graf, 10–5\n\nWTA Rankings\n\nYear-end ranking timeline\n\nHistory \nGraf won eight of nine majors before Seles won her first. Seles surpassed Graf as the No. 1 player in March 1991, and won seven of eight grand slam titles during the period of 1991–1993. The two traded the number one ranking through the summer of 1991 before Seles consolidated her hold on the top spot. Graf in the end did recapture the No. 1 ranking from Seles in June 1993, after Seles was forced out of the sport due to her stabbing.\n\nNotable matches \n\n1992 French Open Final: Seles made an excellent start, Graf recovered, Graf saved six championship points before Seles won an epic struggle by 10–8 in the third set, to win her third consecutive French Open Women's Singles title. This match was voted the best women's match of the 20th Century.\n\n1992 Wimbledon Final: Graf easily defeated Seles 6–2, 6–1, in a one-sided final. The match was notable for Seles refusing to grunt after massive media criticism of her grunting in the days before, and for constant rain delays during the second set.\n\n1993 Australian Open Final: A high quality final where Seles came from a set behind to defeat Graf and win her third consecutive Australian Open Women's Singles title.\n\n1995 US Open Final: The first post-stabbing match between Seles and Graf. Graf won a close final in three sets, despite losing the second set 0–6.\n\n1996 US Open Final: Graf won 7–5, 6–4, with Graf playing at the peak of her powers. The match was more one-sided than the scoreline suggested. The end of the match and the trophy ceremony saw pouring rain.\n\n1998 Chase Championship Quarter Final: Graf recovered from a poor start to win a close match 1–6, 6–4, 6–4.\n\n1999 Australian Open Quarter Final: Seles won 7–5, 6–1, and finished the match strongly, for her only post-stabbing victory over Graf.\n\n1999 French Open Semi Final: Graf defeated Seles in a three-set match after coming from a set behind. This was their last ever head-to-head match. Graf went on to win the title.\n\nSee also\nList of tennis rivalries\n1993 Citizen Cup\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n profiles at WTA site\n Head to Head record\n\nTennis rivalries\nSteffi Graf"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain."
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | Did she perform well? | 3 | Did Steffi Graf perform well? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival is a rock festival currently held in Columbus, Ohio, United States and is produced by Danny Wimmer Presents.\n\nHistory\n\nIn 2018 it was announced that Rock on the Range would be replaced by Danny Wimmer Presents as the Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival. The inaugural festival was held in May 2019 with sold-out crowds of 120,000.\n\nIn December 2019, the full lineup for Sonic Temple 2020 was revealed. Metallica were to headline both Friday and Saturday night, with Slipknot headlining on Saturday. Other performers were to include Deftones, Bring Me the Horizon, Evanescence, Sublime with Rome, Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Cypress Hill, Pennywise, Royal Blood, The Pretty Reckless, Alter Bridge, Anthrax, Flatbush Zombies, Pop Evil, Hellyeah, Ghostemane, Suicidal Tendencies, Testament, Dance Gavin Dance, Ice Nine Kills, Sleeping with Sirens, The Darkness, Knocked Loose, Code Orange, Power Trip, Saint Asonia, Dirty Honey, Jinjer, City Morgue, Bones UK, Airbourne, Fire from the Gods, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Des Rocs, Counterfeit, Crobot, Cherry Bomb, DED, Goodbye June, Brutus, 3Teeth, BRKN Love, Killstation, Brass Against, Crown Lands, Ego Kill Talent, Dregg, Bloodywood, and Zero 9:36, with more to have been announced.\n\nIn February 2020, it was announced that Metallica would be replaced as headliners by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool, following frontman James Hetfield's entrance into a rehabilitation program for substance abuse. The following month, the festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2021, it was announced it would once again be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with plans to return in 2022.\n\nEvents\n\n2019 \n\nMonster Energy Stadium Stage:\n System of a Down\n Ghost\n Halestorm\n Parkway Drive\n Beartooth\n Avatar\n Badflower\n\nEcho Stage:\n Meshuggah\n Black Label Society\n Bad Wolves\n Zeal & Ardor\n Wage War\n SHVPES\n The Jacks\n\nWave Stage:\n Tom Morello\n Pussy Riot\n Ho99o99\n Cleopatrick\n Hands Like Houses\n Radattack\n\nSiriusXM Comedy & Spoken Word Tent:\n Henry Rollins\n Tom Morello\n Shapel Lacy\n Nadya\n\nMonster Energy Stadium Stage:\n Disturbed\n Papa Roach\n Lamb of God\n In This Moment\n Gojira\n Fever 333\n Black Coffee\n\nEcho Stage:\n The Cult\n Killswitch Engage\n Architects\n The Black Dahlia Murder\n While She Sleeps\n Evan Konrad\n The Plot in You\n\nWave Stage:\n Action Bronson (did not perform due to an \"unforeseen knee injury\")\n Mark Lanegan Band\n Don Broco\n Movements\n Boston Manor\n No1Cares\n\nSiriusXM Comedy & Spoken Word Tent:\n Andrew Dice Clay\n Eleanor Kerrigan\n Mark Normand\n Craig Grass\n\nMonster Energy Stadium Stage:\n Foo Fighters\n Bring Me the Horizon (did not perform due to high winds)\n Chevelle (did not perform due to high winds)\n The Distillers (did not perform due to high winds)\n The Struts\n The Glorious Sons\n Amigo the Devil\n\nEcho Stage:\n Joan Jett and the Blackhearts\n The Hives (performance ended early due to high winds)\n The Interrupters\n Yungblud\n Palaye Royale\n Dirty Honey\n Teenage Wrist\n\nWave Stage:\n Scars on Broadway (did not perform due to high winds)\n Refused (did not perform due to high winds)\n Black Pistol Fire (did not perform due to high winds)\n Basement (did not perform due to high winds)\n Scarlxrd (did not perform due to high winds)\n Demob Happy (did not perform due to high winds)\n\nSiriusXM Comedy & Spoken Word Tent:\n Pauly Shore (did not perform due to high winds)\n Carmen Lynch (did not perform due to high winds)\n Joe Deuce (did not perform due to high winds)\n Bill Squire (did not perform due to high winds)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nHeavy metal festivals in the United States\nMusic festivals established in 2019\nMusic festivals in Ohio\nRock festivals in the United States",
"Jin Chae-seon (born 1842 or 1847) was a Korean pansori singer, widely regarded as the first female master of a male dominated genre, although she was probably not the first woman to perform pansori, as gisaeng courtesans might have performed it before her. She was a master of performing Chunhyangga and Simcheongga.\n\nLife and career\nJin was born in what is today Gochang County in North Jeolla province, as the daughter of a female shaman. She had a talent for singing since her childhood. She was discovered by pansori patron Shin Jae-hyo at the age of 17 and learnt pansori singing and performance at his school. He took her in as his student despite the social stigma that did not allow women to perform pansori at the time. At age 22, she was sent by Shin to the palace to perform at a celebratory dinner, disguised as a man. There she caught the attention of Heungseon Daewongun (the father of Gojong of Korea). The Daewongun appreciated Jin's singing talent and kept her at the palace as a court singer. According to the Doosan Encyclopedia, Jin became the Daewongun's concubine, as well.\n\nShin became devastated at the loss of his student, for whom he had romantic feelings. He dedicated a pansori to her, titled The song of the Peach Blossom (도리화가). When the Daewongun fell out of power, Jin returned to her already ill mentor and stayed by his side until his death. After Shin's passing, she disappeared without a trace and neither the date nor the place of her death is known.\n\nIn media\n Portrayed by Bae Suzy in the 2015 film The Sound of a Flower.\n\nReferences\n\n1840s births\nPansori\nKorean women singers\nYear of death unknown\nPeople from Gochang County\nYeoyang Jin clan"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets."
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | Did she play for charity during her exhibition career? | 4 | Did Steffi Graf play for charity during her exhibition career? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"Muniba Mazari Baloch (Urdu: منیبہ مزاری; born 3 March 1987, also known as the Iron Lady of Pakistan) is a Pakistani activist, anchor artist, model, singer and motivational speaker. She became the National Ambassador for UN Women Pakistan after being shortlisted in the 100 Inspirational Women of 2015 by BBC. She also made it to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2016.\n\nMuniba Baloch is also Pakistan's first model and anchor who uses a wheelchair. She uses a wheelchair due to injuries sustained in a car accident at the age of 21. She appeared as a host on Hum News's social show Main Nahi Hum.\n\nPersonal life \nMuniba Mazari is from a Baloch background, belonging to the tribe of Mazari. She was born in Rahim Yar Khan which is in southern Punjab on 3 March 1987. Muniba went to the Army Public School, and later attended college in her native home town for a BFA. At the age of 18, before she could complete her studies, she was married. In 2008, she was involved in an accident, which left her paraplegic.\n\nAccident and recovery \nOn 27 February 2008, Muniba and her husband were travelling from Quetta to Rahim Yar Khan. Their car met with an accident, in which she sustained several major injuries, including broken bones in her arm (both radius and ulna), rib-cage, shoulder blade, collarbone and spine. Her lungs and liver were also deeply cut. Moreover, her entire lower body was left paralysed. She was taken to a nearby hospital, which was ill-equipped to deal with such a severe case. She was then moved to a hospital in Rahim Yar Khan, and eventually, she was admitted to the Agha Khan Hospital, Karachi. Post-surgery, she was left bed-ridden for two years. Physiotherapy started, which helped her recover enough to use a wheelchair.\n\nAfter treatment for her injuries, Muniba moved to Rawalpindi. In 2011, four years after the accident, Muniba adopted her son, Nael.\n\nCareer\nMuniba Mazari has gained fame in multiple areas, as an artist, activist, anchor, model, singer and motivational speaker. Most of her career, however, has been built on painting and motivational speaking.\n\nWhile painting, she found a job working for Areeb Azhar to run his Facebook page for monthly wages. She also started work at her son's school for a startup project called Dheeray Bolo (Speak Slowly), which involved teaching Urdu at various schools. The managing director of Pakistan Television (PTV) at the time, Mohammad Malick, learnt about her because of her TED talk, and asked her to work at PTV. She also worked for Clown Town in September, 2014, which allowed her to work with children and the elderly.\n\nApart from this, Muniba was chosen by Pond's as the Pond's Miracle Woman. She was also chosen by international hairdressing salon, Toni & Guy, to become the first-ever wheelchair-using model in Asia. Her first campaign for them was called Women of Substance.\n\nMuniba Mazari has been a part of Dil Say Pakistan's campaign to spread the feeling of patriotism and unity in Pakistan. She has performed as a singer for them, including in a YouTube video which was published in August 2017 as part of their Independence Day campaign for that year.\n\nIn June 2019, Muniba was appointed by the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, to be a part of Pakistan's first ever National Youth Council.\n\nArtist \nMuniba started painting on her hospital bed. Her medium is acrylics on canvas. With the slogan, Let Your Walls Wear Colours, she created her own art brand called Muniba's Canvas. She has presented her work in exhibitions, including a six-day exhibition held in Lahore from 19 April 2016 to 24 April 2016. This exhibition was held at Collectors Galleria and displayed 27 acrylic paintings.\n\nHer first International exhibition was held in Dubai - entitled And I Choose To Live - at the Pakistan Association Dubai. The two-day exhibition - hosted by the Embassy of Pakistan, Poetic Strokes and The Collectors Galleria, Lahore - was inaugurated by Moazzam Ahmad Khan, the Pakistani ambassador to the UAE.\n\nShe has displayed her art in several other exhibitions, as well as for charity, including:\n\n USEA Art Club, Islamabad (Solo exhibition)\n Nomad Art Gallery (Group exhibition)\n Tribal Heritage Art and Craft Gallery, Islamabad (Group exhibition)\n My Art World Gallery, Islamabad (Group exhibition)\n Worked on a project for the Embassy of United States of America Overseas Buildings Operations, Islamabad\n Australian High Commissioners' Charity Art Exhibition for a Christian school in Rawalpindi\n Exhibition at Serena Hotel, Islamabad, collaborated with National University of Modern Languages\n Collaborated with three artists for an exhibition at Arts Council, Rawalpindi, in 2011\n Took part in a Charity Event for United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR). She also donated a painting to UNHCR and Ministry of Women Development during an exhibition for refugees organized by Islamabad-based SACH (Struggle for Change) NGO\n\nMotivational speaker \nShe has participated as a motivational speaker on various fronts, with her first break being TED Talks, Islamabad. Some of her notable works as a speaker include:\n\n Entrepreneurs' Organization Network, Pakistan\n Motivational speech at Army Public School, Peshawar and Combined Military Hospital, Peshawar. She also sang Ye Watan Tumhara Hai by Mehdi Hassan\n Leader's Summit\n Motivational speech at Bank Alfalah Training Centre, Lahore\n Invited as a guest to Women Entrepreneurship Day at the National University of Science and Technology Business School\n Talked about social entrepreneurship at the Youth Alumni Reunion 2014\n Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO)\n VCon Malaysia\n Vcon Dubai\n\nAwards and honors \n 100 Inspirational Women of 2015 (BBC)\n500 most influential Muslims of the world\n First Pakistani UN GoodWill Ambassador for UN Women\nForbes 30 Under 30 - 2016\nThe Karic Brothers Awards 2017 in Serbia by The Karic Foundation\n\nThe Karic Brothers Award \n\nMuniba Mazari received Karic Brothers Award in Belgrade, Serbia under the category of humanitarian services.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nOfficial website\n\n1987 births\nLiving people\nBaloch people\nPakistani motivational speakers\nPakistani people with disabilities\nPakistani women artists\nPakistani women writers\nPeople from Rahim Yar Khan District\nPeople from Islamabad\nPakistani non-fiction writers\nPeople with paraplegia\nPakistani women's rights activists\nBBC 100 Women\nForbes 30 Under 30 recipients",
"Elizabeth \"Bessie\" Campbell (1870–1964), whose heritage is Irish, was an Anglican Australian-born banjo player as well as a charity worker.\n\nEarly life \nElizabeth Campbell, known as \"Bessie\", was born on 21 July 1870 in Melbourne, Australia. She is from an Irish and Anglican background and is the daughter of Christopher Campbell, a former employee for Madam Tussaud in Dublin, and Eliza née McMullen who was his second wife. Christopher and his wife migrated to Melbourne in 1849. In the early 1870s their family moved to Sydney as he continued his work in the waxworks industry.\n\nEducation \nWhen Bessie was 14 years old, she went to London with her parents. Whilst there she was taught the banjo by Joe Daniels and documented that, \"she took a great fancy to the five stringed banjo\". The year after the family returned to Sydney where she remained learning the banjo for three more months from the American Hosea Easton.\n\nCareer \nBessie Campbell started to come out and play her banjo in charity concerts from 1891. In about September 1893 she played a solo at the American Banjo Club's concert at the Centenary Hall, York Street, in assistance of the Seamen's Mission.Bessie began to appear in concerts for charity not money. Her success was so big that by 1897 she was titled \"Australia's greatest lady banjoist\". Bessie had become the first female member to join the \"American Banjo Club\", which was founded by Stent in 1892. On average, she received six to eight letters a week wanting her to perform at concerts great and small. In April 1904 she was compensated five guineas for performing at the Bathurst Agricultural Show. Bessie was titled as \"The Banjo Queen\" in 1907, and toured the northern rivers with the National Concert Company. Her songs consisted of Christy-minstrel songs and Negro spirituals in her collection and was regularly accompanied by her sister on the piano.\n\nCharity work \nAt one of her charity shows, one critic found her \"a wonder for she plays the banjo with so much ability as to render it almost a classical instrument\". During World War I, at the crest of her career, she gave numerous performances for servicemen and the Australian Red Cross Society. After the war had ended, Bessie performed at many charity shows for the Western Suburbs Leagues Club and the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League. In the 1920s she was the honorary secretary of the Wanderers Club, and was involved in charitable work for them and Burwood Municipal Council.\n\nPersonal life \nBessie was diagnosed with arthritis in the early 1930s, and this was making it challenging for her to play and she had never made commercial recordings ever since. Bessie was a great fan of cricket. Bessie Campbell was considered as a beautiful woman and consistently had suitors.\n\nDeath \nBessie died an unmarried woman on 28 April 1964 at Burwood, New South Wales and was buried in the Anglican section of Rookwood cemetery.\n\nReferences\n\nBanjoists\n1870 births\n1964 deaths\nAustralian musicians\nAustralian people of Irish descent\nWomen banjoists\n19th-century Australian women\n20th-century Australian women"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.",
"Did she play for charity during her exhibition career?",
"Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, \"Children for Tomorrow\"."
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | Did Graf play in the United States at all? | 5 | Did Steffi Graf play in the United States at all? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"Klaus Graf (born 21 July 1969) is a German professional racing driver. He is the son of rally driver Peter Graf. He lives in the United States while competing in the American Le Mans Series. He resulted LMP1 class champion in 2012, and runner-up in 2010 and 2011.\n\nRacing career\n\nBorn in Dornhan, Graf has won championships and races in several road racing series. In 2004, he raced part-time in NASCAR Nextel Cup for BAM Racing. He competed in one race at Infineon Raceway finishing 17th; however, he attempted two other races during the year. He attempted 8 races for the same team in 2007 but did not qualify for any of them. In 2005 he won the Trans-Am Series Driver's Championship, becoming the first Trans Am champion born outside the United States since David Hobbs in 1983.\n\nKlaus raced for Muscle Milk Pickett Racing in the American Le Mans Series. His best finishes in the 2010 season were an LMP2 class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring sharing with team owner Greg Pickett and Sascha Maassen, and overall race wins (and LMP class) at the Northeast Grand Prix sharing with Pickett, and at the Grand Prix of Mosport sharing with Romain Dumas.\n\nIn 2011, Graf collected further victories at Long Beach, Mosport, Mid-Ohio and Road America in the team's Lola-Aston Martin. For 2012, Graf returned to the team and drove together with Lucas Luhr in a new HPD ARX-03a for the entire ALMS season.\n\nGraf won the 2012 and 2013 ALMS LMP1 driver's championships with codriver Lucas Luhr.\n\nRacing record\n\n24 Hours of Le Mans results\n\nComplete Porsche Supercup results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\n† — Did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.\n\n‡ — Guest driver – Not eligible for points.\n\nNASCAR\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nNextel Cup Series\n\nARCA Re/Max Series\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nComplete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Klaus Graf at the American Le Mans Series official website\n Klaus Graf at Driver Database\n Klaus Graf at Racing Sports Cars\n Klaus Graf at Race Database\n CytoSport\n \n\n1969 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Rottweil (district)\nGerman expatriates in the United States\nRacing drivers from Baden-Württemberg\nGerman racing drivers\nNASCAR drivers\nAmerican Le Mans Series drivers\nTrans-Am Series drivers\n24 Hours of Le Mans drivers\nPorsche Supercup drivers\nBlancpain Endurance Series drivers\n24 Hours of Daytona drivers\nWeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers\n24 Hours of Spa drivers\nARCA Menards Series drivers",
"Shaun Francis Graf (born 19 May 1957) is a former Australian first-class cricketer who played 11 One Day Internationals (ODIs) for Australia in the early 1980s as an all-rounder. He represented Western Australia as well as his native Victoria in the Sheffield Shield and also played county cricket for Hampshire. He was part of Sheffield Shield-winning sides in 1979–80 (Victoria) and 1983–84 (Western Australia).\n\nBiography\nGraf was born in 1957 in Somerville, Victoria, Australia. Educated at St Bede's College, Graf made his grade debut at the age of 19 for St Kilda Cricket Club in the 1976–77 season as an all-rounder, bowling right-arm medium fast and batting left-handed with an emphasis on driving.\n\nGraf travelled to England during 1979 and played for Wilshire in the Minor Counties competition. Highlights include 51 against Oxfordshire, 7–73 against Dorset and 79 and four wickets against Berkshire. He took 6–27 playing for the Gloucestershire Second XI.\n\n1979–80 First Class Debut\nGraf made his first-class debut in 1979–80 for Victoria.\n\nHe turned in a number of notable performances that season, including 3–24 against WA, 58 not out against WA, and seven wickets against South Australia.\n\nGraf also had some good games in the McDonald's Cup. In his debut he took 1–44 and 19 not out against SA, helping Victoria win by three wickets. In the final he took 2–34, helping Victoria win the game and the championship. Victoria also won the Sheffield Shield that season.\n\nIn grade cricket, Graf took 4–54 and scored 93 helping St Kilda beat Melbourne. He took five wickets in the final but Footscray won the match.\n\n1980 – Hampshire\nGraf received an offer to play over the 1980 English summer with the Hampshire County Cricket Club. He performed disappointingly, scoring 214 runs at 19 and only exceeding 50 in a first-class game once, and taking only 16 first-class wickets at an average of 48 with best figures of 2–24. Highlights included 44 against Oxford, Hampshire came last that season. and 57 not out against Essex in his final county game.\n\nHis form was slightly better in one day games, taking 3–44 against Derbyshire, 2–12 against Somerset, 3–26 against Lancashire, and 2–24 against Essex.\n\nHe also had some good games for the Hampshire 2nd XI, taking five wickets and scoring 51 in one game.\n\n1980–81 – International Player\nGraf's first-class form was better in the Australian 1980–81 season. In his first Shield game, against WA, he scored 34 and 64 and took four wickets. He leapt into international consideration in another game against WA, scoring 100 not out and taking 3–24. In one day games he took 2–6 against Queensland.\n\nAustralia was looking for an all rounder and these efforts saw Graf named in the Test team for the second Test against the touring New Zealand. Graf wound up as 12th man though and did not play.\n\nHe was however selected to make his ODI debut in November 1980 against New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval.\n\n\"If we have a deficiency at the moment, it is possibly that we lack a true all-rounder\", said Australian captain Greg Chappell at the time. \"Shaun Graf is an up-and-comer in this area and he is possibly what Australia needs – not only in one day cricket but in Test matches as well\".\n\nGraf made a duck and took 1/40 in the match. He was kept on in the side for the next game, against New Zealand, taking 2–40. Against India he took 0–30 and scored 5. He took 0–15 against New Zealand and 2–23 against India.\n\nGraf was dropped from the Australian Test team for the third Test against New Zealand due to a back injury, which saw him miss a Shield game; he was replaced by Trevor Chappell, who played as 12th man. Graf passed a fitness test and replaced Chappell for the first Test against India; however Graf was made 12th man again. He was replaced in the next test by Bruce Yardley.\n\nIn one day cricket Graf took 0–31 against India, 2–40 and 7 in a thrilling one run loss to New Zealand, scored 2 and took 1–36 against India and scored 2 against New Zealand.\n\nGraf played in nine of Australia's ten group matches in that season's triangular ODI tournament, but was omitted from the team for the finals series after scoring just 16 runs at an average of 3.20 with a top score of 7 despite being picked as an all-rounder batting at number seven or eight. He did manage to take eight wickets at 31.88 in the series, with three two-wicket hauls. Towards the end of the summer he was dropped in favour of Graeme Beard.\n\nTowards the end of the season, Graf took six wickets and scored 51 in a game against Queensland and 3–40 in a McDonald's Cup game. However his form was not particularly strong in other matches and he was overlooked for selection on the 1981 tour of England (Graeme Beard and Trevor Chappell went instead).\n\n1981–82\nThe following season Graf's highlights include five wickets in a Shield game against Queensland and scores of 55 and 39 against NSW\n\nGraf returned to the Australian one day side in the second and third matches of the ODI series, replacing an injured Dennis Lillee. He made his top score of eight against Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, but after failing to take a wicket in that match, he conceded an expensive 56 runs in nine overs without success against the West Indies in the following match, and was dropped. He took 3–28 in a state one day game.\n\n1982–83\nGraf was unable to force his way back into the Australian one day side the following summer. He had his best first-class bowling returns to date against WA, taking 4–53 and 5–95. and played excellently in the McDonald's Cup semi final against WA, scoring 29 and taking 4–15. The majority of the rest of his performances were disappointing, however.\n\nGraf returned to England for the 1983 English summer, playing for Cornwall in the Minor Counties Championship. Highlights include 7 wickets against Devon, 46 against Buckinghamshire, 62 and 56 against Cheshire, 60 against Shropshire, and 4–19 against Dorset.\n\n1983–84 Move to WA\nIn 1983–84 he moved to Western Australia for one year, and was part of the winning Sheffield Shield team.\n\nHighlights included 3–55 against WA, 54 and four wickets against Pakistan, scores of 34 and 73 plus three wickets in a narrow victory over Victoria, 74 and 31 not out against Queensland, and five wickets against Tasmania. In the final against Queensland, Graf took 3–111 and 3–34 and scored 14 and 17 not out; he was at the crease when WA won by four wickets. In the McDonald's Cup final, Graf's late innings knock of 37 off 33 balls brought WA within eight runs of victory.\n \nGraf returned to Victoria the following season, playing one Shield game (scoring 49 and taking four wickets against Queensland) before retiring.\n\nIn all, he played 55 matches, scoring 1,559 runs at an average of 25.14 with one century, and claimed 124 wickets at an average of 33.91 with a best bowling of 5/95.\n\nIn limited overs matches, he averaged 25.22 with the bat and 25 with the ball.\n\nLater career\nHe became a Victorian selector in 1990–91 and became the cricket operations manager of the Victorian Cricket Association in 1995.\n\nGraf played grade cricket for St Kilda until the 1999–2000 season. St Kilda won the competition in 1984–85 and 1985–86 (Graf scored 58 in the final). They reached the final in 1989–90 after a semi final where Graf scored 53 and took 6–39; they lost the final despite Graf taking two wickets and scoring 102. They won the competition in 1991–92 with Graf taking 2–41 – Shane Warne was in the St Kilda team.\n\nReferences \n\n \n\n1957 births\nLiving people\nAustralia One Day International cricketers\nHampshire cricketers\nVictoria cricketers\nWestern Australia cricketers\nWiltshire cricketers\nCornwall cricketers\nAustralian cricketers\nCricketers from Melbourne"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.",
"Did she play for charity during her exhibition career?",
"Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, \"Children for Tomorrow\".",
"Did Graf play in the United States at all?",
"In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation."
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | When did sha play her last exhibition? | 6 | When did Steffi Graf play her last exhibition match? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | In 2010, | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"Charmaine Shamiso Mapimbiro (born 13 July 1994), professionally known as Sha Sha, is a Zimbabwean-born South African singer from Mutare. Hailed by many as \"the queen of amapiano\", her career began in 2011, at the age of 19 and later was discovered by Audius Mtawarira. She gained popularity for her collaborations with South African amapiano producers such as DJ Maphorisa and Kabza de Small.\n\nHaving signed a record deal with Blaq Boy Music, her debut Blossom EP, was released in 2019. She was awarded Best New International Act at the 2020 BET Awards.\n\nEarly life and career\n\n1994–2017: Early years and career beginnings \nBorn in Mutare, Mapimbiro moved around Zimbabwe whilst growing up following her parents' separation, often residing with her grandmother or aunts. Her music journey began after joining the choir, subsequently taking vocal and piano lessons as a child.\n\nWhilst a teenager, one of Mapimbiro's friends helped get one of Zimbabwe's biggest radio stations to play her music. This radio airplay was well-received and caught the attention of singer-songwriter Audius Mtawarira, who eventually became her mentor and helped her with improving her craft. With help from Zimbabwean musician Brian Soko in 2017, the duo were connected with South African musicians such Rouge and Priddy Ugly who featured her on their releases. During this time, Sha Sha also crossed paths with DJ Maphorisa through her cab driver. The two began working on ballads together and, with help from the latter, was able to meet future collaborators Mlindo the Vocalist and Don Laka.\n\n2018–present: Blossom EP \nSha Sha was signed to DJ Maphorisa's label Blaqboy Music in 2018. After gaining prominence with her vocals on the songs \"Akulaleki\" by Samthing Soweto, \"Nge Thanda Wena\" by Mlindo The Vocalist and \"We Mama\" by Scorpion Kings, Sha Sha released her debut EP, Blossom on November 1, 2019.\n\nOn December 3, 2020, Sha Sha released the single \"Woza\".\n\nDiscography\n\nExtended plays \n Blossom (2019)\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nLiving people\n1994 births\n21st-century Zimbabwean women singers\nPeople from Mutare\nDeep house musicians\nAmapiano musicians",
"The 1982–83 Liga Alef season saw Beitar Haifa (champions of the North Division) and Hapoel Marmorek (champions of the South Division) win the title and promotion to Liga Artzit. Hapoel Holon also promoted after promotion play-offs.\n\nNorth Division\n\nSouth Division\n\nPromotion play-offs\n\nMaccabi Sha'arayim would have been promoted to Liga Artzit. however, shortly after their second leg victory over Maccabi Hadera, it was discovered that a resident of Rehovot (city of Maccabi Sha'arayim), attempted to bribe several players from Maccabi Hadera. as a result, Maccabi Sha'arayim were disqualified, and the promotion play-offs rearranged, between the third placed club in the South division, Hapoel Holon, and Maccabi Hadera.\n\nHapoel Holon promoted to Liga Artzit.\n\nReferences\nHapoel Ra'anana record win 7-0 Maariv, 8.5.83, Historical Jewish Press \nHolon's victory did not salvage Maariv, 8.5.83, Historical Jewish Press \nSha'arayim of Gad on the way to Artzit Maariv, 22.5.83, Historical Jewish Press \nMaccabi Hadera - Hapoel Holon Davar, 5.7.83, Historical Jewish Press \nHapoel Holon returned to Artzit, defeated Maccabi Hadera 3:0 Davar, 13.7.83, Historical Jewish Press \n\nLiga Alef seasons\nIsrael\n3"
]
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[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.",
"Did she play for charity during her exhibition career?",
"Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, \"Children for Tomorrow\".",
"Did Graf play in the United States at all?",
"In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation.",
"When did sha play her last exhibition?",
"In 2010,"
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | What else did she do besides play tennis? | 7 | What else did Steffi Graf do besides play tennis? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | false | [
"Margit Madarász (23 August 1884 — 15 February 1959) was a Hungarian tennis player, the first Hungarian woman to play tennis internationally.\n\nEarly life\nMargit Laura Madarász was born in Budapest, the daughter of artist Gyula Madarász and Margit Mária Ligeti. Her maternal grandfather was artist Antal Ligeti. Her half-sisters Katalin Cséry and Sarolta Cséry also played tennis.\n\nCareer\nMadarász was the first Hungarian woman to play tennis internationally. She began competing in tennis matches with the Budapest Lawn Tennis Club in 1901. She was the Hungarian national champion in 1903 and 1904. She won the German women's singles championship in 1907 and 1908, in Hamburg. She also played at Monte Carlo in 1907 and 1908. \"On several occasions the Hungarian lady, Mlle. de Madarasz, showed up well with her powerful service,\" one 1908 report explained, \"and it was mainly from lack of stamina that this young player failed to do even better.\" She qualified for and was scheduled to play in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, but did not compete. Instead, she retired from tennis when she married that year.\n\nPersonal life\nMadarász married twice, first, in 1908, to Pál Kunz (who died in 1915) and second, in 1916, to Károly Thuróczy. Later in life she was known as a social hostess in Budapest before World War II. She was widowed again in 1947, and she died in 1959, aged 74 years.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n A 1906 photograph of Madarász playing a mixed doubles match in the South of France, from Getty Images.\n\n1884 births\n1959 deaths\nHungarian female tennis players\nTennis players from Budapest",
"Cameron Morra (born September 20, 1999) is an American tennis player. Morra has reached a career-high WTA ranking of 1008 in singles and 868 in doubles. She made her main draw debut at the 2019 Citi Open partnering with Alana Smith in doubles.\n\nPersonal life and early life\nCameron's parents are David and Elizabeth Morra. She has a younger sister named Sloane. Growing up, Morra did not play in many junior events or receive much outside coaching due to the extensive travel, costs, and stress of being on the junior circuit. Instead, she would almost entirely practice on a tennis court built in her backyard with her father coaching her. Despite her limited time and exposure on the junior circuit, Morra has played in ITF pro circuit events since she was 14. On November 13, 2017, she signed a national letter of intent to play collegiate tennis at the University of North Carolina.\n\nAmateur career\nDuring her freshman year at UNC, Morra primarily played at No. 4 singles and No. 2 doubles, with records of 31–8 and 24–5 respectively. She helped the Tar Heels win the ACC Tournament and was named the tournament MVP. Morra reached the semifinals of the 2019 NCAA Singles Tournament, becoming the first UNC freshman to do so, and the quarterfinals of the doubles tournament, teaming up with Makenna Jones. For her play during the season, Morra was named second team All-ACC, ACC Freshman of the Year, and ITA All-American in both singles and doubles.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n North Carolina Tar Heels bio\n\nAmerican female tennis players\nLiving people\n1999 births\nNorth Carolina Tar Heels women's tennis players\nTennis people from Maryland"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.",
"Did she play for charity during her exhibition career?",
"Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, \"Children for Tomorrow\".",
"Did Graf play in the United States at all?",
"In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation.",
"When did sha play her last exhibition?",
"In 2010,",
"What else did she do besides play tennis?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | What is something that stands out about her exhibition career? | 8 | What is something that stands out about Steffi Graf's tennis exhibition career? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
"\"Something Real\" is a song by American R&B singers Summer Walker, Chris Brown and recording producer London on da Track.\n\nComposition \n\"Something Real\" is an R&B song where Walker expresses her desire to find the right man for her, explaining her needs to the person concerned and how her previous boyfriend did not please her, and Brown plays the part of the person concerned, explaining that he knows what she is about.\n\nTrack listing\n Digital download and stream\n \"Something Real\" – 3:34\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2019 singles\n2019 songs\nChris Brown songs\nLondon on da Track songs\nSongs written by Chris Brown",
"Celeste in the City is a television movie starring Majandra Delfino and Nicholas Brendon. It premiered on ABC Family in 2004. It was directed by Larry Shaw.\n\nPlot\nCeleste Blodgett is a somewhat unkempt young woman who moves from her small hometown to Manhattan with aspirations of becoming a journalist. Her romantic ideas about New York are quickly shattered when she discovers her new apartment is small, dirty and rat-infested. Luckily, her neighbor Kyle is an interior designer and helps her fix up the place. She obtains a job as a lowly fact checker at a newspaper called the New York Examiner and feels discouraged about her career prospects.\n\nCeleste reconnects with her cousin Dana, who has come out as gay since moving to the city. Since Celeste looks and feels out of place, Dana and his friends give her a makeover. This helps her out romantically and in her career. She gets the chance to be a journalist and is ecstatic. \n\nKyle has been harboring feelings for Celeste, which she doesn't realize because she's under the false impression that he's gay due to his profession. Trying to be helpful, she sets Kyle up with Dana on a date. Kyle expresses confusion and Dana quickly figures out what happened.\n\nCeleste eventually realizes that her boss, Mitch, was only treating her well because he was sexually attracted to her. She stands up to him and calls him on his behavior. Celeste learns that Kyle is straight and they begin a relationship.\n\nCast\nMajandra Delfino as Celeste Blodgett \nNicholas Brendon as Dana Harrison \nEthan Embry as Kyle Halley\nMichael Boisvert as Mitch Tanzer\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2004 television films\n2004 films\nABC Family original films\nAmerican films\nFilms set in Manhattan\nEnglish-language films"
]
|
[
"Steffi Graf",
"Post-career exhibition matches",
"When did Graf start her post career exhibition matches?",
"In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour,",
"Who did Graf play for in her exhibition matches?",
"She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain.",
"Did she perform well?",
"In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets.",
"Did she play for charity during her exhibition career?",
"Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, \"Children for Tomorrow\".",
"Did Graf play in the United States at all?",
"In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation.",
"When did sha play her last exhibition?",
"In 2010,",
"What else did she do besides play tennis?",
"I don't know.",
"What is something that stands out about her exhibition career?",
"Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi"
]
| C_d0e9bc4e72184f1fb6ceb489ddce9e70_1 | Did she ever play with any other tennin superstars? | 9 | Did Steffi Graf ever play with any other tennis superstars, besides Kim Clijsters? | Steffi Graf | In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sanchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow". In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5-4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5-2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow". In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8-7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10-5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles. In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova. CANNOTANSWER | She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva | Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and third-most of all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major at least four times.
Graf was ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks: the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the singles number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She won 107 singles titles, which ranks her third on the WTA's all-time list after Martina Navratilova (167 titles) and Chris Evert (157 titles). She and Margaret Court are the only players, male or female, to win three majors in a calendar year five times (1988, 1989, 1993, 1995 and 1996).
Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. She won six French Open singles titles (second to Evert), seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. She is the only singles player (male or female) to have achieved a Grand Slam since the hard court was introduced as a playing surface, replacing grass, at the US Open in 1978. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five singles Grand Slams were achieved on only grass and clay. Graf reached 13 consecutive singles major finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won five consecutive singles majors (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open), and seven out of eight, in two calendar years (1988 Australian Open to 1989 US Open, except 1989 French Open). She reached a total of 31 singles major finals.
Graf retired at the age of 30 in 1999 while she was ranked world No. 3. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Martina Navratilova included Graf at the top of her list of the greatest players ever. In the year of Graf's retirement, Billie Jean King said, "Steffi [Graf] is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. She married former world No. 1 men's tennis player Andre Agassi in October 2001. They have two children. Graf was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004. Along with Boris Becker, Graf was considered instrumental in popularizing tennis in Germany, where it remains one of the foremost national sports.
Early life
Stefanie Graf was born on 14 June 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, to Heidi Schalk and car-and-insurance salesman Peter Graf (18 June 1938 − 30 November 2013). When she was nine years old, her family moved to the neighboring town of Brühl. She has a younger brother, Michael. Her father, an aspiring tennis coach, first introduced her to the game, teaching his three-year-old daughter how to swing a wooden racket in the family's living room. She began practising on a court at the age of four and played in her first tournament at five. She soon began taking the top prize at junior tournaments with regularity, going on to win the European Championships 12s and 18s in 1982.
Career
Early career
Graf played in her first professional tournament in October 1982 at Filderstadt, Germany. She lost her first round match 6–4, 6–0 to Tracy Austin, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1 player. (Twelve years later, Graf defeated Austin 6–0, 6–0 during a second round match at the Evert Cup in Indian Wells, California, which was their second and last match against each other.)
At the start of her first full professional year in 1983, Graf was 13 years old and ranked world No. 124. She won no titles during the next three years, but her ranking climbed steadily to world No. 98 in 1983, No. 22 in 1984, and No. 6 in 1985. In 1984, she first gained international attention when she almost upset the tenth seed, Jo Durie of the United Kingdom, in a fourth round Centre Court match at Wimbledon. In August as a 15-year-old (and youngest entrant) representing West Germany, she won the tennis demonstration event at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. No medals were awarded as this was not an official Olympic event.
Graf's schedule was closely controlled by her father, who limited her play so that she would not burn out. In 1985, for instance, she played only ten events leading up to the US Open, whereas another up-and-coming star, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who was a year younger than Graf, played 21. Peter Graf also kept a tight rein on Graf's personal life. Social invitations on the tour were often declined as Graf's focus was kept on practicing and match play. Working with her father and then-coach Pavel Složil, Graf typically practiced for up to four hours a day, often heading straight from airports to practice courts. This narrow focus meant that Graf, already shy and retiring by nature, made few friends on the tour in her early years, but it led to a steady improvement in her play.
In 1985 and early 1986, Graf emerged as the top challenger to the dominance of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. During that period, she lost six times to Evert and three times to Navratilova, all in straight sets. She did not win a tournament but consistently reached tournament finals, semifinals and quarterfinals, with the highlight being her semifinal loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
On 13 April 1986, Graf won her first WTA tournament and beat Evert for the first time in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Hilton Head, South Carolina. (She never lost to Evert again, beating her six more times over the next three and a half years.) Graf then won her next three tournaments at Amelia Island, Charleston, and Berlin, culminating in a 6–2, 6–3 defeat of Navratilova in the final of the latter. Illness caused her to miss Wimbledon, and an accident where she broke a toe several weeks later also curtailed her play. She returned to win a small tournament at Mahwah just before the US Open where, in one of the most anticipated matches of the year, she encountered Navratilova in a semifinal. The match was played over two days with Navratilova finally winning after saving three match points 6–1, 6–7, 7–6. Graf then won three consecutive indoor titles at Tokyo, Zurich, and Brighton, before once again contending with Navratilova at the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships in New York. This time, Navratilova beat Graf 7–6, 6–3, 6–2.
Breakthrough year: 1987
Graf's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came in 1987. She started the year strongly, with six tournament victories heading into the French Open, with the highlight being at the tournament in Miami, where she defeated Martina Navratilova in a semifinal and Chris Evert in the final and lost only 20 games in the seven rounds of the tournament. In the French Open final, Graf defeated Navratilova, who was the world No. 1, 6–4, 4–6, 8–6 after beating Sabatini in a three-set semifinal.
Graf then lost to Navratilova 7–5, 6–3 in the Wimbledon final, her first loss of the year. However, in the Federation Cup final in Vancouver, Canada, three weeks later, she defeated Evert easily 6–2, 6–1. The US Open ended anti-climactically as Navratilova defeated Graf in the final 7–6, 6–1.
Graf had a win-loss record of 75-2 for a 97.4 winning percentage in 1987, both losses coming to Navratilova as they split the four matches they played during the year. On 17 August, after defeating Evert in a straight set final in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Graf overtook Navratilova for the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in her career, a ranking she would hold for the next 186 consecutive weeks, a record (it was tied by Serena Williams in 2016). Graf was the first player other than Navratilova or Evert to hold the top spot since Tracy Austin in 1980.
Golden Slam: 1988
Graf started 1988 by winning the Australian Open, defeating Chris Evert in the final 6–1, 7–6. Graf did not lose a set during the tournament and lost a total of only 29 games.
Graf lost twice to Sabatini during the spring, once on hardcourts in Boca Raton, Florida, and once on clay at Amelia Island, Florida. Graf, however, won the tournament in San Antonio, Texas, and retained her title in Miami, where she once again defeated Evert in the final. Graf then won the tournament in Berlin, losing only twelve games in five matches.
At the French Open, Graf successfully defended her title by defeating Natasha Zvereva 6–0, 6–0 in a 34-minute final. The official time of the match given on the scoresheet was 34 minutes; however, just 32 minutes of that was spent on the court, as a rain break split the match into two periods of play, of nine and 23 minutes. That was the shortest-ever and most one-sided Grand Slam final ever and the only double bagel in a Major final since 1911. Zvereva, who had eliminated Martina Navratilova in the fourth round, won only thirteen points in the match.
Next came Wimbledon, where Martina Navratilova had won six straight titles. Graf was trailing Martina Navratilova in the final 7–5, 2–0 before winning the match 5–7, 6–2, 6–1. She then won tournaments in Hamburg and Mahwah (where she lost only eight games all tournament).
At the US Open, Graf beat Sabatini in a three-set final to win the Grand Slam by 6–3, 3–6, 6–1, a feat previously performed by only two other women, Maureen Connolly Brinker in 1953 and Margaret Court in 1970. Graf's 1988 Grand Slam remains the only one in history completed on three surfaces (grass, clay, hard court), as all other Grand Slams in tennis history were achieved prior to the introduction of hard court at the US Open in 1978.
In reaching and winning all four Grand Slam finals, Graf became the first player in history to contest and win 28 Grand Slam singles matches in a single year; albeit including the unplayed walkover against Evert in the US Open. Even discounting that result, no other player had played and won 27 Grand Slam matches in a single year before and the feat has to date only been matched by Novak Djokovic since, in both 2015 and 2021, when he failed in both bids to win the Grand Slam.
Graf then defeated Sabatini 6–3, 6–3 in the gold medal match at the Olympic Games in Seoul and achieved what the media had dubbed the "Golden Slam". Graf also won her only Grand Slam doubles title that year—at Wimbledon partnering Sabatini—and picked up a women's doubles Olympic bronze medal. Graf was the first tennis player to achieve the feat: wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott achieved the Golden Slam in 2021.
At the year-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf was upset by Pam Shriver, only her third loss of the year. The loss deprived her of the Golden Super Slam. She was named the 1988 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
At the end of the year, the municipality of Brühl, her hometown, gave her the title of honorary citizen.
New challengers and personal challenges
1989
Speculation was rife at the beginning of 1989 about the possibility of Graf winning another Grand Slam. Some noted observers, such as Margaret Court, suggested that Graf could achieve the feat a couple more times. And the year began as expected, with Graf extending her Grand Slam tournament winning streak to five events at the Australian Open, defeating Helena Suková in the final. Her 6–3, 6–0 defeat of Gabriela Sabatini in a semifinal was described by veteran observer Ted Tinling as "probably the best tennis I've seen". He went on to add, "I saw what Steffi did to Sabatini at the Australian Open this year, and that was it. She is better than them all."
Graf followed this with easy victories in her next four tournaments at Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, Boca Raton, Florida, and Hilton Head. The Washington, D.C. tournament was notable because Graf won the first twenty points of the final against Zina Garrison. In the Boca Raton final, Graf lost the only set she conceded to Chris Evert in their final seven matches.
In the subsequent Amelia Island final on clay, Graf lost her first match of the year to Sabatini but returned to European clay with easy victories at Hamburg and Berlin.
Graf's Grand Slam tournament winning streak ended at the French Open, where 17-year-old Spaniard Arantxa Sánchez Vicario beat Graf in three sets. Graf served for the match at 5–3 in the third set but lost the game and won only three more points in the match. Suffering from food poisoning, she had struggled to beat Monica Seles in their semifinal 6–3, 3–6, 6–3 and said that she had menstrual cramps in the final. Graf, however, recovered to defeat Martina Navratilova 6–2, 6–7, 6–1 in the Wimbledon final after defeating Monica Seles 6–0, 6–1 in a fourth round match, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a quarterfinal, and Chris Evert in a semifinal.
Graf warmed up for the US Open with easy tournament victories in San Diego and Mahwah. In her semifinal match at the US Open, Graf defeated Sabatini 3–6, 6–4, 6–2. The match was notable for its dramatic ending. Having suffered from leg cramps since the middle of the third set, Graf ran off the court seconds after match point to seek medical treatment. In the final, Navratilova led 6–3, 4–2 before Graf rallied to win 3–6, 7–5, 6–1 for her third Grand Slam singles title of the year.
Victories at Zurich and Brighton preceded the Virginia Slims Championships, where Graf cemented her top-ranked status by beating Navratilova in the four-set final. Graf ended 1989 with an 86–2 match record and the loss of only 12 sets. Her 0.977 winning percentage is the second-highest in the open era behind Navratilova.
1990
Graf defeated Mary Joe Fernández in the final of the Australian Open, which was her eighth Grand Slam singles title in the last nine she contested. She survived an intense three-set battle with Helena Sukova in the semis, breaking in the tenth and final game to win the third set 6–4. Her winning streak (unbeaten since the 1989 French Open loss to Arantxa Sánchez) continued with victories in Tokyo, Amelia Island, and Hamburg. Shortly after winning in Tokyo, Graf injured her right thumb while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and subsequently withdrew from the Virginia Slims of Florida and the Lipton Championships. In Berlin, she extended her unbeaten streak to 66 matches (second in WTA history to Navratilova's 74) before losing the final to Monica Seles, 4–6, 3–6.
While the Berlin tournament was being played, the largest-circulation German tabloid, Bild, ran a story about an alleged scandal involving Graf's father. The difficulty of answering questions about the matter came to a head at a Wimbledon press conference, where Graf broke down in tears. Wimbledon authorities then threatened to immediately shut down any subsequent press conferences where questions about the issue were asked. Whether this scandal affected Graf's form is open to debate. In an interview with Stern magazine in July 1990, Graf stated, "I could not fight as usual."
Graf again lost to Monica Seles in the final of the French Open 6–7, 4–6. Seles was behind 2–6 in the first-set tiebreaker, but then came back to win six points in a row and take the set. At Wimbledon, Graf lost in the semifinals to Zina Garrison, who with this victory broke Graf's string of 13 consecutive major finals. This was a major upset as Garrison had to save a match point to defeat Monica Seles in the quarterfinal, and was expected to easily fall to Graf, whom she had not beaten in four years. After victories in Montreal and San Diego, Graf reached the US Open final, where she lost in straight sets to Sabatini. Graf won four indoor tournaments after the US Open, including a pair of straight-set wins over Sabatini in the finals of Zürich and Worcester. Although Sabatini got the best of Graf in the semifinals of the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships, Graf still finished the year as the top-ranked player.
1991
A mixture of injury problems, personal difficulties, and loss of form made 1991 a tough year for Graf. Seles established herself as the new dominant player on the women's tour, winning the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open and, in March, ending Graf's record 186 consecutive-weeks hold on the World No. 1 ranking. Graf briefly regained the top ranking after winning at Wimbledon but lost it again after her loss to Navratilova at the US Open.
Graf lost an Australian Open quarterfinal to Jana Novotná, the first time she did not reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament since the 1986 French Open. She then lost to Sabatini in her next three tournaments before winning the U.S. Hardcourt Championships in San Antonio, beating Monica Seles in the final. After losing a fifth straight time to Sabatini in Amelia Island, Florida, Graf again defeated Seles in the Hamburg final. Following her tournament victory in German Open in Berlin, Graf suffered one of the worst defeats of her career in a French Open semifinal where she won only two games against Sánchez Vicario and lost her first 6–0 set since 1984. At Wimbledon, however, Graf captured her third women's crown, this time at Sabatini's expense. Sabatini served for the match twice, and was two points away from her first Wimbledon title. After breaking Sabatini's serve to even the third set at 6–6, Graf defeated Sabatini by winning the next two games to take the match 6–4, 3–6, 8–6. Martina Navratilova then defeated Graf 7–6, 6–7, 6–4 in a US Open semifinal, the first time she had beaten Graf in four years. Graf then won in Leipzig, with her 500th career victory coming in a quarterfinal against Judith Wiesner. After winning two more indoor tournaments at Zurich and Brighton, she failed once again in the Virginia Slims Championships, losing her quarterfinal to Novotná. Soon after, she split with her long-time coach, Pavel Složil.
1992
A bout of rubella forced Graf to miss the first major event of 1992, the Australian Open. Her year continued indifferently with losses in three of her first four tournaments, including a semifinal loss to Jana Novotná in Chicago. It was Graf's second consecutive loss to Novotna, and dating back to their 1991 Australian Open quarterfinal match, Jana had won three of their last five meetings. It would also be the last loss Graf would ever have to Novotna in a match she completed (she did have a loss after withdrawing with injury after the first set of a late 1996 match). Chicago was notable, however, for being the first tournament Graf played with her new coach, former Swiss player Heinz Günthardt. Graf's father had approached Günthardt during the 1991 Virginia Slims Championships. She would work with him for the remainder of her career. In Boca Raton, Florida, Graf reached her first final of the year, where she faced Conchita Martínez for the title. In their five previous head-to-head matches, Graf had defeated Martínez each time. Even though she lost the opening set, Graf went on to prevail in three sets. She lost twice to Sabatini in the early spring at the Lipton International and the Bausch & Lomb Championships, which now brought her to seven losses in her last eight matches against Sabatini; however, the Bausch & Lomb loss would be Graf's final loss to Sabatini, winning her next, and last eight matches against Sabatini.
Victories at Hamburg and Berlin (beating Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both) prepared her for the French Open, where she defeated Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals after losing the first set 6–0. Graf then lost a closely contested final to Monica Seles, 2–6, 6–3, 8–10. Seles won the match on her fifth match point; Graf came within two points of winning the match a few games earlier. At Wimbledon, after struggling through early-round three-setters against Mariaan de Swardt and Patty Fendick, she easily defeated Natasha Zvereva in the quarterfinal, Sabatini in the semifinal, and Seles in the final, 6–2, 6–1, with Seles playing in almost complete silence because of widespread media and player criticism of her grunting. Graf then won all five of her Fed Cup matches, helping Germany defeat Spain in the final by defeating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, 6–4, 6–2. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Graf lost to Jennifer Capriati in the final and claimed the silver medal. At the US Open, Graf was upset in the quarterfinals by Sánchez Vicario 7–6, 6–3. Four consecutive indoor tournament victories in the autumn helped improve her season, but for the third consecutive year, she failed to win the Virginia Slims Championships, where she lost in the first round to Lori McNeil.
Second period of dominance
1993
Graf began 1993 with four losses in her first six tournaments of the year: two to Sánchez Vicario and one each to Seles and the 36-year-old Martina Navratilova. Seles defeated Graf at the Australian Open 4–6, 6–3, 6–2. She struggled at the German Open in Berlin where she lost a 6–0 set to the unheralded Sabine Hack before defeating Mary Joe Fernández and Sabatini in three-set matches to claim her seventh title there in eight years.
During a quarterfinal match between Seles and Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Seles was stabbed between the shoulder blades by a mentally ill German fan of Graf, Günter Parche. He claimed that he committed the attack to help Graf reclaim the world No. 1 ranking. More than two years elapsed before Seles competed again. Shortly after the stabbing, during a players meeting at the Italian Open in Rome, 17 of the world's top 25 WTA members voted against preserving Seles' world No. 1 ranking while she was sidelined. Since Graf skipped the Italian Open, she did not take part in the vote.
During Seles's absence, Graf won 65 of 67 matches, three of four Grand Slam events and the year-end Virginia Slims championships. She won her first French Open title since 1988 with a three-set victory over Mary Joe Fernández in the final. Fernandez had two break points to take a 3–0 and double break lead in the third set. The win elevated Graf to the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 22 months. At Wimbledon, Graf defeated Jana Novotná to win her third consecutive, and fifth overall, ladies' title. In the third and deciding set, Novotná had a point to go up 5–1 on her serve. After breaking Novotná's serve, Graf won the next four games to take the match 7–6, 1–6, 6–4. Graf had a bone splinter in her right foot during this tournament (and for the next few months), finally resulting in surgery on 4 October.
In the meantime, she lost surprisingly to Nicole Bradtke of Australia in a Fed Cup match on clay before winning the Acura Classic in San Diego and the Canadian Open in Toronto in preparation for the US Open. She won there, comfortably beating Helena Suková in the final after needing three sets to eliminate Gabriela Sabatini and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. In the fall, Graf won the Volkswagen Card Cup in Leipzig a day before her foot operation, losing only two games to Jana Novotná in the final. Graf lost to Conchita Martínez in her comeback tournament a month later in Philadelphia. However, she finished her year with a highlight, winning her first Virginia Slims Championships since 1989 by beating Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final despite needing painkillers for a back injury.
1994
Seemingly free of injury for the first time in years, Graf began the year by winning the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final with the loss of only two games. Graf later stated it was the best tennis she had ever played in a Grand Slam final. She then won her next four tournaments in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Delray Beach and Miami respectively. In the Miami final, she lost her first set of the year—to Natasha Zvereva—after winning 54 consecutive sets. In the Hamburg final, she lost for the first time in 1994 after 36 consecutive match victories, losing to Sánchez Vicario in three sets. She then won her eighth German Open, but there were signs that her form was worsening as she almost lost to Julie Halard in a quarterfinal. As the defending champion Graf lost in straight sets to Mary Pierce in the French Open semifinal. This was followed by a first-round straight-sets loss at Wimbledon to Lori McNeil, her only loss at Wimbledon between 1991 and 1997 and her first loss in a first round Grand Slam tournament in ten years. Graf still managed to win San Diego the following month but aggravated a long-time back injury in beating Sánchez Vicario in the final. Graf developed a bone spur at the base of her spine due to a congenital condition of the sacroiliac joint. She began to wear a back brace and was unsure about playing the US Open but elected to play while receiving treatment and stretching for two hours before each match. She made it to the final and took the first set against Sánchez Vicario but lost the next two sets — Sanchez Vicario's last victory over Graf. In the middle of the second set, Graf suffered back spasms while reaching for a ball in the ad court. She took the following nine weeks off, returning only for the Virginia Slims Championships where she lost in straight sets to Pierce in the quarterfinal. Although Graf ended the year ranked No. 1 on the computer the ITF named Sanchez Vicario its World Champion for the year, while the WTA backed their official rankings and named Graf.
1995
A strained right calf muscle forced Graf to withdraw from the Australian Open. She came back in February, winning four consecutive tournaments in Paris, Delray Beach, Miami and Houston. She then beat Sánchez Vicario in the finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. The 1995 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the most dramatic women's major finals in history as Graf and Sánchez Vicario battled in a tight third set that included a 16-minute long, 13-deuce game on Sanchez Vicario's serve at 5–5. In August Monica Seles made her much anticipated return to tennis at the Canadian Open. It was decided to grant her a joint number-one ranking with Graf who took her first loss of the year in the first round to Amanda Coetzer. The US Open was Monica Seles's first Grand Slam event since the 1993 attack, with much anticipation again around a potential Seles-Graf final. After surviving a scare in a three-setter against Amanda Coetzer in the first round, Graf reached the final with relative ease, while Seles went through her side of the draw in even more convincing fashion. Seles and Graf met in the final, with Graf winning in three sets, saving a set point in the first set. Graf then capped the year by beating countrywoman Anke Huber in a five-set final at the season-ending WTA Championships in 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Tax issues
In personal terms, 1995 was a difficult year for Graf, as she was accused by German authorities of tax evasion in the early years of her career. In her defense, she stated that her father Peter was her financial manager, and all financial matters relating to her earnings at the time had been under his control. Her father was arrested in August and was sentenced to 45 months in jail. He was eventually released after serving 25 months. Prosecutors dropped their case against Graf in 1997, when she agreed to pay a fine of 1.3 million Deutsche Marks to the government and an unspecified charity.
1996
Graf again missed the Australian Open after undergoing surgery in December 1995 to remove bone splinters from her left foot. Graf came back to the tour in March, winning back to back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, followed by a record ninth title at the German Open in May and a quarterfinal defeat in Rome against Martina Hingis. She then successfully defended the three Grand Slam titles she won the year before. In a close French Open final, Graf again overcame Sánchez Vicario, taking the third set 10–8. Graf had led 4–1 in the second set tiebreak, only to lose six points in a row and force a decider. Twice in the third set Sánchez Vicario served for the championship but was broken each time by Graf. It was the longest French Open women's singles final in history, both in terms of time (3 hours and 3 minutes) and number of games played (40). Graf then had a straight-sets win against Sánchez Vicario in the Wimbledon final. That was the last competitive match Graf and Sánchez Vicario would ever play against one another. In July, a left knee injury forced Graf to withdraw from the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Graf played only one warm-up event ahead of the US Open, the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach, California, where she lost to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals. She then successfully defended her title at the US Open, defeating Monica Seles in the final. Her toughest battle came against rising star Martina Hingis in the semifinal, with Hingis unable to convert on five set points. Graf did not lose a set the whole tournament. She also won her fifth and final WTA Tour Championships title with a five set win over Martina Hingis, with Hingis cramping up in the fifth set.
In 1988, Graf became only the second tennis player in history to win a Slam on hardcourt, clay, and grass all in the same season. She repeated the feat in 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Final years on the tour: 1997–99
The last few years of Graf's career were beset by injuries, particularly to her knees and back. She lost the world No. 1 ranking to Martina Hingis and failed to win a Grand Slam title for the first time in ten years in 1997. That year Graf lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open in straight sets to Amanda Coetzer.
She subsequently withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open and had arthroscopic surgery performed on her left knee. After several months injury lay off, Graf returned to play in the German Open in Berlin in front of a home crowd and had the worst defeat of her career in the quarterfinal, when Amanda Coetzer beat her in just 56 minutes 6–0, 6–1. In the French Open Graf was again beaten by Amanda Coetzer in straight sets, 6–1, 6–4. Only one week later, she underwent reconstructive knee surgery in Vienna and subsequently missed the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open championships. The treatment was for a fracture of the cartilage as well as a shortening and partial rupture of the patellar tendon of her left knee.
After missing almost half of the tour in 1998, Graf lost in the third round at Wimbledon and in the fourth round at the US Open. Shortly after the US Open, she underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in her right wrist. Upon her return Graf defeated world No. 2 Hingis and world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport en route to the Philadelphia title. At the first round of the season-ending Chase Championships, Graf defeated world No. 3, Jana Novotná, before losing in the semifinal to first-seeded Davenport.
At the beginning of 1999 Graf played the warm up event to the Australian Open in Sydney; she defeated Serena Williams in the second round and Venus in the quarterfinals before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the semifinal. Graf then went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open before losing to Monica Seles in two sets. In Indian Wells Graf lost to Serena Williams in three sets.
At the French Open, Graf reached her first Grand Slam final in three years and fought back from a set and twice from a break down in the second set to defeat the top ranked Hingis in three sets for a memorable victory. Graf became the first player in the open era to defeat the first, second, and third ranked players in the same Grand Slam tournament by beating second-ranked Davenport in the quarterfinals and third-ranked Seles in the semifinals. Graf said after the final that it would be her last French Open, fueling speculation about her retirement.
Graf then reached her ninth Wimbledon singles final, losing to third-seeded Davenport in straight sets. She had to overcome three difficult three set matches en route to this final, against Mariaan De Swardt in the third round, Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and Mirjana Lučić in the semifinals.
On 13 August 1999, shortly after retiring with a strained hamstring from a second round match against Amy Frazier in San Diego, Graf announced her retirement from the women's tour at age 30. She was ranked No. 3 at that time and said, "I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis. I feel I have nothing left to accomplish. The weeks following Wimbledon [in 1999] weren't easy for me. I was not having fun anymore. After Wimbledon, for the first time in my career, I didn't feel like going to a tournament. My motivation wasn't what it was in the past."
Doubles career
From the beginning of her career until 1990, Graf regularly played doubles events in Grand Slams and other tournaments, winning a total of eleven titles. In 1986, she formed a partnership with rival Gabriela Sabatini. The pair was moderately successful, winning the 1988 Wimbledon Championships together and reaching the finals of the French Open in 1986, 1987 and 1989. The partnership was the subject of much discussion, as the two women, both known to be shy, usually kept communication to a minimum during changeovers and between points, a highly unusual situation in doubles. Sabatini said of the partnership: "doubles is all about communicating with each other, and we didn't communicate that much. We would just say the basic things, but nothing else." The pair played their last major tournament together at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, losing in the quarterfinals. From 1991 until the end of her career, Graf would only play doubles sporadically, forming short-term partnerships with a variety of players, including Lori McNeil, Anke Huber and her best friends on the tour, Rennae Stubbs, Patricia Tarabini and Ines Gorrochategui. She played her last Grand Slam doubles tournament at the 1999 Australian Open with Gorrochategui, losing in the second round.
Graf also occasionally played mixed doubles, although she never won a title. She partnered with doubles specialist Mark Woodforde at the Australian Open in 1994, with Henri Leconte at Wimbledon in 1991 and at the French Open in 1994, and with Charlie Pasarell at the US Open in 1984. In an unusual arrangement, she paired with her coaches Pavel Složil at Wimbledon in 1988 and Heinz Günthardt in 1992 and 1996, also at Wimbledon. At the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, Graf formed a much-publicized partnership with John McEnroe, with whom she reached the semifinals before withdrawing due to concerns that her uncertain hamstring, coupled with a bout of bronchitis, would affect her in the singles final.
Post-career exhibition matches
In late 1999 and early 2000, as part of her Farewell Tour, Graf played a series of exhibition matches against former rivals in New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Germany and South Africa. She played Jelena Dokic in Christchurch, New Zealand, Amanda Coetzer in Durban, South Africa, and her former rival Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in Zaragoza, Spain. It was Graf and Sánchez Vicario's first head-to-head meeting since 1996. In February 2000, Graf played against Kimiko Date at Nagoya Rainbow Hall in Tokyo, winning in three sets. In September 2004, Graf dispatched her former doubles partner Gabriela Sabatini, in straight sets, in an exhibition match played in Berlin, Germany. She was also in Berlin to host a charity gala, as well as inaugurating a tennis stadium renamed the "Steffi Graf Stadion". Proceeds from her match against Sabatini went to Graf's foundation, "Children for Tomorrow".
In July 2005, Graf competed in one tie of World Team Tennis (WTT) on the Houston Wranglers team. She was beaten in two out of three matches, with each match being one set. Graf lost her singles match to Elena Likhovtseva 5–4. She teamed with Ansley Cargill in women's doubles against Anna Kournikova and Likhovtseva but lost 5–2. She was successful, however, in the mixed doubles match. Graf completely ruled out a return to professional tennis. In October, Graf defeated Sabatini in an exhibition match in Mannheim, Germany, winning both of their sets. Like the exhibition match the previous year against Sabatini, proceeds went to "Children for Tomorrow".
In 2008 Graf lost an exhibition match against Kimiko Date at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo. As part of the event, billed as "Dream Match 2008", she defeated Martina Navratilova in a one-set affair 8–7, with Graf winning a tiebreaker 10–5. It was the first time in 14 years Graf had played Navratilova. Graf played a singles exhibition match against Kim Clijsters and a mixed doubles exhibition alongside husband Andre Agassi against Tim Henman and Clijsters as part of a test event and celebration for the newly installed roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2009. She lost a lengthy one-set singles match to Clijsters and also the mixed doubles.
In 2010, Graf participated in the WTT Smash Hits exhibition in Washington, D.C. to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation. She and Agassi, her husband, were on Team Elton John, which competed against Team Billie Jean King. Graf played in the celebrity doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles before straining her left calf muscle and being replaced by Anna Kournikova.
Summary of career
Graf won seven singles titles at Wimbledon, six singles titles at the French Open, five singles titles at the US Open, and four singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 278–32 (90 percent) (84–10 at the French Open, 74–7 at Wimbledon, 73–9 at the US Open, and 47–6 at the Australian Open). Her career prize-money earnings totalled US$21,895,277 (a record until Lindsay Davenport surpassed this amount in January 2008). Her singles win/loss record was 900–115 (88.7 percent). She was ranked world No. 1 for 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987 to March 1991; tied with Serena Williams, a record in the women's game) and a record total 377 weeks overall.
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Note:
Graf's semifinal match at the 1988 US Open was walkover (so not counted as win)
Grand Slam tournament finals
Singles: 31 (22 titles, 9 runner-ups)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)
Records
These records were attained in Open Era of tennis.
Records in bold indicate Open Era peer-less achievements.
Playing style
The main weapons in Graf's game were her powerful inside-out forehand drive (which earned her the moniker Fräulein Forehand) and her intricate footwork. She often positioned herself in her backhand corner and although this left her forehand wide open and vulnerable to attack, her court speed meant that only the most accurate shots wide to her forehand caused any trouble.
Graf's technique on the forehand was unique and instantly recognizable: generating considerable racquet head speed with her swing, she reached the point of contact late and typically out of the air. As a result, she hit her forehand with exceptional pace and accuracy. According to her coaches Pavel Složil and Heinz Günthardt, Graf's superior sense of timing was the key behind the success of her forehand.
Graf also had a powerful backhand drive but over the course of her career tended to use it less frequently, opting more often for an effective backhand slice. Starting in the early 1990s, she used the slice almost exclusively in baseline rallies and mostly limited the topspin backhand to passing shots. Her accuracy with the slice, both cross-court and down the line and her ability to skid the ball and keep it low, enabled her to use it as an offensive weapon to set the ball up for her forehand put-aways. However, Graf admitted in 1995 that she would have preferred having a two-handed backhand in retrospect.
She built her powerful and accurate serve up to , making it one of the fastest serves in women's tennis and was a capable volleyer.
An exceptionally versatile competitor, Graf remains the only player, male or female, to have won the calendar-year Grand Slam on three surfaces or to have won each Grand Slam at least four times. Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and former rival Chris Evert opined, "Steffi Graf is the best all-around player. Martina [Navratilova] won more on fast courts and I won more on slow courts, but Steffi came along and won more titles on both surfaces." Her endurance and superior footwork allowed her to excel on clay courts, where, in addition to six French Open titles, she won 26 regular tour events, including a record eight titles at the German Open. Meanwhile, her naturally aggressive style of play, effective backhand slice and speed around the court made her even more dominant on fast surfaces such as hard courts, grass and carpet. Graf stated that grass was her favorite surface to play on, while clay was her least favorite.
Equipment and endorsements
Early in her career, Graf wore Dunlop apparel, before signing an endorsement contract with Adidas in 1985. She had an Adidas sneakers line known as the St. Graf Pro line. Early in her career, Graf used the Dunlop Maxpower Pro and Maxpower Kevlar racquets and then played with the Max 200G racquet from 1984 to 1993 before switching to Wilson from 1994 to 1999. She first used the Wilson Pro Staff 7.0 lite, then switched to the Pro Staff 7.5 in 1996 and to the Pro Staff 7.1 in 1998. Graf's racquets were strung at 29 kilograms (64 pounds), significantly above the 50-60 pound range recommended by Wilson. In 2006, she signed an endorsement deal with Head. In 2010, Graf and Agassi collaborated with Head and developed the new line of Star Series tennis racquets.
Graf has signed many endorsement deals throughout the years including a ten-year endorsement deal with car manufacturer Opel in 1985, and Rexona from 1994 to 1998. Other companies she has endorsed include Barilla, Apollinaris, Citibank, Danone and Teekanne. She has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Andre Agassi including Canon Inc. and Longines in 2008 (Agassi became Longines ambassador in 2007). In 2015, she was appointed as the brand ambassador of Kerala tourism, for promoting Ayurveda in North America and Europe.
Personal life
In 1997, she left the Catholic Church, citing personal reasons. During her career, Graf divided her time between her hometown of Brühl; Boca Raton, Florida; and New York City where she owned a penthouse in the former Police Headquarters Building in SoHo.
From 1992 to 1999, Graf dated racing driver Michael Bartels. She started dating Andre Agassi after the 1999 French Open and they married on 22 October 2001, with only their mothers as witnesses. They have two children, a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2003. Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and her brother also live there.
In 1991, the Steffi Graf Youth Tennis Center in Leipzig was dedicated to her. She is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit foundation established in 1998 for implementing and developing projects to support children who have been traumatized by war or other crises.
In 2001, Graf indicated that she preferred to be called Stefanie instead of Steffi.
On 30 November 2013, Graf's father Peter died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75 years old.
Legacy
In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press.
In March 2012, Tennis Channel picked Graf as the greatest female tennis player ever in their list of 100 greatest tennis players of all time. In November 2018, Tennis.com polled its readers to choose the greatest women's tennis player of all time and Graf came in first. In July 2020, The Guardian polled its readers to determine the greatest female tennis player of the past 50 years, and Steffi was the clear favorite, picking up nearly twice as many votes as any other player.
Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named Graf as the best female player of the 20th century. Flink said in 2020 that the jury was still out on (Serena) Williams as the greatest ever, but Williams' consistency over the long span did not match that of Graf or Navratilova. Graf compiled superior career accomplishments over Serena Williams (as of December 2, 2020); 900–115 career record (88.7 win %) versus 843–147 career record (85.2 win %), 107 career tournament victories versus 72 career tournament victories, 377 total weeks ranked as world No. One versus 319 total weeks ranked as world No. One. While Graf's 22 Grand Slam wins is one fewer than Williams' 23 (and two fewer than Margaret Court's 24), Graf's professional career is eight years shorter than Williams, plus Graf also faced much tougher competition during her era (Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, and Monica Seles) compared to Williams. However, with the stabbing of Monica Seles in 1993, some have questioned its impact on Graf's career statistics and legacy.
Awards and honours
Graf was voted the ITF World Champion in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995 and 1996. She was voted the WTA Player of the Year in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. She was elected as the German Sportsperson of the Year in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.
In 2004, the Berliner Tennis-Arena was renamed Steffi-Graf-Stadion in honor of Graf.
Graf was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004 and the German Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2015, Graf was the recipient of the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award.
See also
Graf–Navratilova rivalry
Graf–Sabatini rivalry
Graf–Seles rivalry
List of female tennis players
List of tennis rivalries
Overall tennis records - women's singles
Tennis records of the Open Era - women's singles
References
External links
Official Wimbledon profile
BBC profile
ESPN biography
Steffi Graf's victories
German female tennis players
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
1969 births
Living people
Australian Open (tennis) champions
French Open champions
German emigrants to the United States
Hopman Cup competitors
Olympic medalists in tennis
Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany
Olympic gold medalists for West Germany
Olympic silver medalists for Germany
Olympic tennis players of Germany
Olympic tennis players of West Germany
Sportspeople from Mannheim
Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Tennis players at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
US Open (tennis) champions
West German expatriates in the United States
Wimbledon champions
World No. 1 tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doubles
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
German philanthropists
German women philanthropists
Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
People from SoHo, Manhattan
Andre Agassi
Tennis people from Baden-Württemberg | true | [
", which may include , , and the specifically female version, the , are a divine kind of spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhism that are similar to western valkyries, angels, nymphs or fairies. They were seemingly imported from Chinese Buddhism, which was itself influenced by the concepts of heavenly beings found in Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism.\n\nHistory\nTennin are mentioned in Buddhist sutras, and these descriptions form the basis for depictions of the beings in Japanese art, sculpture, and theater. They are usually pictured as unnaturally beautiful women dressed in ornate, colorful kimono (traditionally in five colors), exquisite jewelry, and flowing scarves that wrap loosely around their bodies. They usually carry lotus blossoms as a symbol of enlightenment or play musical instruments such as the biwa, or flute.\n\nReligion\nTennin are believed to live in the Buddhist heaven as the companions to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Some legends also make certain tennin solitary creatures living on mountain peaks. Pilgrims sometimes climb these mountains in order to meet the holy spirits.\n\nPowers\nTennin can fly, a fact generally indicated in art by their colored or feathered kimono, called hagoromo (羽衣, lit. feather dress). In some legends, tennin are unable to fly without these kimono (and thus cannot return to heaven). More rarely, they are shown with feathered wings. In a Noh play Hagoromo, which bears a number of similarities to the Western swan maiden legends, tennyo come to the earth and take off their hagoromo. A fisherman spies them and hides their clothes in order to force one to marry him. After some years he tells his wife what he did, and she finds her clothes and returns to heaven. The legend says it occurred on the beach of Miho no Matsubara, now a part of the city of Shizuoka.\n\nSee also\n\nValkyries\nApsara\nCeres, Celestial Legend\nDivine being\nInuYasha Movie 2: Castle Beyond the Looking Glass\nNymph\n\nReferences\n\nBuddhism in Japan\nBuddhism in China\nFairies\nJapanese legendary creatures\nChinese legendary creatures\nFemale legendary creatures\nSupernatural legends\nBuddhist gods",
"is among the most-performed Japanese Noh plays. It is an example of the traditional swan maiden motif.\n\nSources and history\nThe earliest recorded version of the legend dates to the eighth century. The play however apparently combines two legends, one concerning the origins of the Suruga Dance (Suruga-mai) and another the descent of an angel onto Udo Beach. A parallel story may also be found in the 14th volume of the fifth-century Sou-shen chi. A poem by the 11th century poet Nōin is quoted.\n\nThe authorship of the Noh play Hagoromo is unknown. The earliest references to the play in historical records date to 1524, which suggests that it was written well after Zeami's time.\n\nPlot\n\nA fisherman is walking with his companions at night when he finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a tennin (an aerial spirit or celestial dancer) hanging on a bough. The tennin sees him taking it and demands its return—she cannot return to Heaven without it. The fisherman argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she will show him her dance or part of it. She accepts his offer. The Chorus explains the dance as symbolic of the daily changes of the moon. The words about \"three, five, and fifteen\" refer to the number of nights in the moon's changes. In the finale, the tennin disappears like a mountain slowly hidden in mist.\n\nAdaptations\nW. B. Yeats' At the Hawk's Well drew extensively from the Hagoromo legend.\n\nAn abridged version of the plot of play is attested in German, with the name Das Federkleid, in Japanische Märchen und Sagen (1885). An English translation exists in the book Green Willow; and other Japanese fairy tales, with the name The Robe of Feathers.\n\nA literary treatment of the play was given as The Fisherman and the Moon-Maiden in Japanese Fairy World (1880). Another version exists with the name The Angel's Robe.\n\nOsamu Tezuka based a short story in his Phoenix series on the story of the Hagoromo, but with a sci-fi twist, featuring a time displaced human girl from the distant future instead of a tennin. Recently, the story was adapted into the manga and anime series Ceres, The Celestial Legend.\n\nSee also\n The princess and the cowherd\n Tsuru no Ongaeshi\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Miller, Alan L. “Of Weavers and Birds: Structure and Symbol in Japanese Myth and Folktale.” History of Religions, vol. 26, no. 3, 1987, pp. 309–327. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1062378. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.\n Miller, Alan L. \"Myth and Gender in Japanese Shamanism: The \"Itako\" of Tohoku\". In: History of Religions 32, no. 4 (1993): 343-67. Accessed April 7, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062826.\n Petkova, Gergana. (2009). Propp and the Japanese folklore: applying morphological parsing to answer questions concerning the specifics of the Japanese fairy tale. pp. 597-618. In: Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques LXIII, 3. Bern: Peter Lang. 2009. 10.5167/uzh-23802. \n Rumpf, Fritz. “Über Japanische Märchen Hagoromo (Das Federkleid).” T'oung Pao, vol. 33, no. 3/4, 1937, pp. 220–267. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4527134. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.\n Sato, Toshihiko. “A STUDY OF A NOH, ‘THE ROBE OF FEATHERS.’” CLA Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 1972, pp. 72–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44328479. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.\n Yasuda, Kenneth K. “The Structure of Hagoromo, a Nō Play.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 33, 1973, pp. 5–89. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2718885. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.\n\nExternal links\nEnglish translation of the Hagoromo Noh play by Arthur Waley\nEnglish translation of the Hagoromo Noh play by Ezra Pound\nHagoromo Noh play Photo Story and Story Paper\n\nNoh plays\nJapanese mythology\nBuddhist plays"
]
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[
"Hole (band)",
"1999-2002: Final tour and disbandment"
]
| C_40b826cb017c484cbcaddd848b55bd96_0 | what was the final tour? | 1 | What was the final tour of the band Hole? | Hole (band) | In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band. The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 18, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999. In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website in 2002. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album. CANNOTANSWER | In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, | Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Influenced by Los Angeles' punk rock scene, the band's debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), was produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and attracted critical interest from British and American alternative press. Their second album, Live Through This, released 1994 by DGC Records, which featured less aggressive melodies and more restrained lyrical content, was widely acclaimed and reached platinum status within a year of its release. Their third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), marked a notable departure from their earlier punk influences, boasting a more commercially viable sound; the album sold around 2 million copies worldwide, and earned them significant critical acclaim.
They disbanded in 2002, and the members individually pursued other projects. Eight years later in 2010, Hole was reformed by Love with new members, despite Erlandson's claim that the reformation breached a mutual contract he had with her. The reformed band released the album Nobody's Daughter (2010), which had originally been conceived as Love's second solo album. In 2013, Love retired the Hole name, releasing new material and touring as a solo artist.
Hole received several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. They were also commercially successful, selling over three million records in the United States alone, and had a far-reaching influence on contemporary female artists. Music and feminist scholars have also recognized the band as the most high-profile musical group of the 1990s to discuss gender issues in their songs, due to Love's aggressive and violent lyrical content, which often addressed themes of body image, abuse, and sexual exploitation.
Background
Hole formed after Eric Erlandson responded to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in The Recycler in the summer of 1989. The advertisement simply read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." "She called me up and talked my ear off," said Erlandson. "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought "Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?" She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like "I know you're the right one", and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet." In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him" and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist." In his 2012 book, Letters to Kurt, Erlandson revealed that he and Love had a sexual relationship during their first year together in the band, which Love also confirmed.
Love had been living a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in numerous music scenes and living in various cities along the West Coast. After unsuccessful attempts at forming bands in San Francisco (where she was briefly a member of Faith No More) and Portland, Love relocated to Los Angeles, where she found work as an actress in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell). Erlandson, a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, was working as a royalties manager for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.
Love had originally wanted to name the band Sweet Baby Crystal Powered by God, but opted for the name Hole instead. During an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, Love claimed the name for the band was partly inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea that read: "There is a hole that pierces right through me." She also cited a conversation with her mother as the primary inspiration for the band's name, in which her mother told her that she couldn't live her life "with a hole running through her." Love also acknowledged the "obvious" genital reference in the band's name, alluding to the vagina.
Career
1989 – 1991: Early work and indie success
In the months preceding the band's full formation, Love and Erlandson would write and record in the evenings at a rehearsal space in Hollywood, loaned to them by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; during the day, Love worked as a stripper to support the band and purchase amplifiers and their backline for live shows. Hole's first official rehearsal took place at Fortress Studios in Hollywood with Love, Erlandson and Lisa Roberts on bass. According to Erlandson, "these two girls show up dressed completely crazy, we set up and they said, "okay, just start playing something." I started playing and they started screaming at the top of their lungs for two or three hours. Crazy lyrics and screaming. I said to myself, "most people would just run away from this really fast. But I heard something in Courtney's voice and lyrics." Initially, the band had no percussion until Love met drummer Caroline Rue, and later recruited a third guitarist, Mike Geisbrecht. Hole's first show took place at Raji's, a small bar in Hollywood, in September 1989. By early 1990, Geisbrecht and Roberts had both left the band, which led to the recruitment of bassist Jill Emery.
Hole released their no wave-influenced debut single "Retard Girl" in April 1990, and followed it with "Dicknail" in 1991, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, respectively. According to disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, Love would often approach him at a Denny's on Sunset Blvd. where he went for coffee in the mornings, and convinced him to give "Retard Girl" airtime on his station KROQ-FM.
In 1991, the band signed onto Caroline Records to release their debut album, and Love sought Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to produce the record. She sent a letter, a Hello Kitty barrette, and copies of the band's early singles to her, mentioning that the band greatly admired Gordon's work and appreciated "... the production of the SST record" (either referring to Sonic Youth's album Sister or EVOL). Gordon, impressed by the band's singles, agreed to produce the album, with assistance from Gumball's Don Fleming. The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in September 1991 to positive reception from underground critics, branded "loud, ugly and deliberately shocking," and earned a spot on Spins "20 Best Albums of the Year" list. It was also voted album of the year by New York's Village Voice and peaked at number 59 on the UK albums chart. The album spawned one single, "Teenage Whore", which entered the UK Indie Chart at number one, as well as the band's debut music video for the song "Garbadge Man".
Musically and lyrically, Pretty on the Inside was abrasive and drew on elements of punk rock and sludge metal, characterized by overt noise and feedback, chaotic guitar riffs, contrasting tempos, graphic lyrics, and a variation of Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screaming. In later years, Love referred to the album as "unlistenable", despite its critical accolades and eventual cult following. The band embarked on a European tour in the fall of 1991 supporting Mudhoney. They also toured intermittently in the United States between July and December 1991, playing primarily at hard rock and punk clubs, including CBGB and the Whisky A Go Go, where they opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. In a write-up by the Los Angeles Times on the band's final show of the tour, it was noted that Love smashed the headstock of her Rickenbacker guitar onstage.
In mid-1991, the band began to get the attention of the major labels. The first to court them was Maverick — a Warner subsidiary founded by Madonna and music executive Freddy DeMann. Love, however, was uninterested: "[They] would have me riding on elephants. They don't know what I am. For them, I'm a visual, period." She was also uneasy about sharing the spotlight on a label so heavily associated with one of the industry's most iconic female performers. In a 1992 interview with Vanity Fair, Love described Madonna's interest as "kind of like Dracula's interest in his latest victim."
1992 – 1999: Mainstream success
1992 – 1995: Live Through This
Love and Erlandson began writing new material for a second Hole album in 1992, in the midst of Love's pregnancy with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Love's desire to take the band in a more melodic and controlled rock format led bassist Emery to leave the band, and drummer Caroline Rue followed. In an advertisement to find a new bass player, Love wrote: "[I want] someone who can play ok, and stand in front of 30,000 people, take off her shirt and have 'fuck you' written on her tits. If you're not afraid of me and you're not afraid to fucking say it, send a letter. No more pussies, no more fake girls, I want a whore from hell." In April 1992, drummer Patty Schemel was recruited after an audition in Los Angeles, but the band spent the remainder of the year without a bassist; Love, Schemel, and Erlandson began to write material together in the interim.
Hole signed to Geffen's subsidiary DGC label with an eight-album contract in late 1992. In the spring of 1993, the band released their single "Beautiful Son", which was recorded in Seattle with producer Jack Endino as a fill-in bass player; Love also played bass on the single's b-side "20 Years In the Dakota", as well as on their contribution to the 1993 Germs tribute album A Small Circle of Friends. In the spring of 1993, Love and Erlandson recruited Janitor Joe bassist Kristen Pfaff, and the band toured the United Kingdom in the summer of that year (including the Phoenix Festival on July 16), mainly performing material from their upcoming major label debut, Live Through This, which they recorded at Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia in October 1993.
Live Through This was released on April 12, 1994, one week after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his Seattle home. In the wake of Love's family tragedy, Live Through This was a critical success. It spawned several popular singles, including "Doll Parts", "Violet", and "Miss World", going multi-platinum and being hailed "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine. NME called the album "a personal but secretive thrash-pop opera of urban nihilism and passionate dumb thinks," and Rolling Stone said the album "may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape."
Despite the critical praise for Live Through This, rumors circulated insinuating that Cobain had actually written the majority of the album, though the band vehemently denies this. The band's drummer Patty Schemel, who had been friends with Cobain since the late 1980s, said: "There's that myth that Kurt [Cobain] wrote all our songs— it's not true. Courtney and Eric wrote Live Through This." The band did, however, state that Love convinced Cobain to provide backing vocals on "Asking for It" and "Softer, Softest" while visiting the studio, and music producers and engineers present during the recording sessions noted that Cobain seemed "completely unfamiliar" with the songs. According to Rolling Stone rock journalist Gavin Edwards, Love and Cobain had written songs together in the past, but opted to not release them because it was "a bit too redolent of John and Yoko."
In 1994, bassist Kristen Pfaff went into a drug treatment facility to treat her heroin addiction. Pfaff contemplated leaving the band for health reasons. In June 1994, she was found dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of her Seattle home, 2 months after the death of Cobain. The band put their impending tour on hold, pulling out of the upcoming Lollapalooza festival. Pfaff's life is, according to Pfaff's brother, the subject of an upcoming book by British authors Sara Hawys Roberts and Guy Mankowski, who he's collaborating with.
Recruiting bassist Melissa Auf der Maur over the summer, they commenced their world tour on August 26 at the Reading Festival in England, giving a performance that John Peel described as "teetering on the edge of chaos." The band embarked on a worldwide tour throughout late 1994 and for the duration of 1995, with appearances at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Saturday Night Live, the Big Day Out festival, MTV Unplugged, the 1995 Reading Festival, Lollapalooza 1995, and at the MTV Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for the "Doll Parts" music video.
Love's reckless stage presence during the tour became a media spectacle, drawing press from MTV and other outlets due to her unpredictable performances. While touring with Sonic Youth, Love got into a physical fight with Kathleen Hanna backstage at a 1995 Lollapalooza festival and punched her in the face. In an August 1995 band interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Patty Schemel formally came out as a lesbian, saying: "It's important. I'm not out there with that fucking pink flag or anything, but it's good for other people who live somewhere else in some small town who feel freaky about being gay to know that there's other people who are and that it's okay." In a retrospective interview, Schemel said:
Toward the end of the tour, the band released their first EP, titled Ask for It, in September 1995; it featured 1991 Peel session recordings, as well as covers of songs by Wipers and The Velvet Underground. The band performed its last show of the year on September 3, 1995 at the Molson Polar Beach Party in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. The concert was a promotional event for the Molson Brewery, and also featured performances by Metallica, Veruca Salt, and Moist.
1996 – 1999: Celebrity Skin
In 1996, the band recorded and released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996) soundtrack, the band's first studio song to feature Melissa Auf der Maur on bass, and produced by Ric Ocasek. Hole released two retrospective albums during this time: firstly, their second EP, titled The First Session (1997), which consisted of a complete version of the band's first recording session at Rudy's Rising Star in Los Angeles in March 1990, some of which had been bootlegged widely years prior. It featured the group's first ever recorded track, "Turpentine", which had previously been unreleased to the public. The same year, the band released their first compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), featuring early singles, b-sides and recent live tracks.
In 1997, the band entered Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles after attempts to write new material in Miami, New Orleans, London, and New York. Recorded over a ten-month period, Hole's third studio album, Celebrity Skin (1998), adopted a complete new sound for the band, incorporating elements of power pop, and had Love drawing influences from Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine. According to Erlandson, Love was more focused on song-writing and singing than playing guitar on the record; Love stated that her aim for the album was to "deconstruct the California sound" in the L.A. tradition of bands like The Doors, The Beach Boys and The Byrds. In addition to Hole, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan entered the studio and helped perfect five of the album's twelve songs. Love, who felt she was in a creative slump, likened Corgan's presence in the studio to "a math teacher who wouldn't give you the answers but was making you solve the problems yourself."
Upon the album's release, Corgan told CNN that he should have "been given credit [for writing the entire album]." Erlandson responded to Corgan's statements in a Rolling Stone interview, commenting: "We were working on all the stuff that Courtney and I had already written. Billy really facilitated things, in a way ... I would bring in the music, Courtney would start coming up with lyrics right away, and [Billy] would help map it all out." Erlandson also stated: "Courtney writes all her own lyrics. Nobody else is writing those lyrics and nobody ever has." One journalist took note of the controversy when reviewing the album, stating: "Back in 1994, the acclaim for Live Through This was undercut by whispers that Love's late husband wrote the album. Combine those conspiracy theories with the unfounded but persistent rumor that Cobain was actually murdered, and it is no surprise that, in the song "Celebrity Skin", Love calls herself a walking study in demonology."
Although Schemel is listed as drummer in the liner notes of the record, her drumming does not actually appear on the record; she was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo, under pressure from producer Michael Beinhorn. After the replacement, Schemel quit the band. Though Love and Erlandson had authorized Schemel's replacement, both expressed regret in retrospect, and Love stated in 2011 that Beinhorn was notorious for replacing drummers on records, and referred to him as "a Nazi". After Schemel's departure, the band hired drummer Samantha Maloney for their upcoming tours and music videos.
Celebrity Skin was a critical success with strong sales and successful singles, including the title track, "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", and "Awful". The album received largely positive reviews, with praise from music periodicals such as Rolling Stone, NME, and Blender, as well as a four-star review from the Los Angeles Times, calling it a "wild emotional ride" sure to be "one of the most dissected and debated collections of the year." The album peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200, and garnered the band its first and only number 1 single, "Celebrity Skin", which topped the Modern Rock Tracks. "Malibu", released December 29, 1998, was the album's second single; it charted at number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks.
1999 – 2002: Final tour and disbandment
In the winter of 1998–99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band.
The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 17, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999.
In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. In April 2002, Love called The Howard Stern Show and said she had written nine songs with songwriter Linda Perry, but less than a month later Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004, featuring several of the songs written with Perry. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album.
2009 – 2013: Reformation and name dispute
On June 17, 2009, seven years after Hole's disbandment, NME reported that Love was re-forming the band with guitarist Micko Larkin for an upcoming album, on which Melissa Auf der Maur would be providing backup vocals. Days later, Melissa Auf der Maur stated in an interview that she was unaware of any reunion, but said Love had asked her to contribute harmonies to an upcoming album. In response, Eric Erlandson stated in an interview with Spin magazine that a reunion could not take place without his involvement, citing that he and Love "have a contract."
Hole launched a new website and various social media pages on January 1, 2010, and performed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in February. On February 17, 2010 they played a full set at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, with support from Little Fish. On March 16, the first Hole single in ten years was released, titled "Skinny Little Bitch"; it peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Rock Chart, and at No. 21 on the Alternative Singles chart. The track also received airplay on Active rock and alternative radio.
Nobody's Daughter was released on April 26, 2010 worldwide on Mercury Records, and was received moderately well by music critics. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, but noted "[while Love] was an absolute monster vocalist in the nineties, the greatest era ever for rock singers ... She doesn't have that power in her lungs anymore – barely a trace. But at least she remembers, and that means something in itself." The magazine also referred to the album as "not a true success", but a "noble effort". Love's voice, which had become noticeably raspier, was compared to the likes of Bob Dylan. NME gave the album a 6/10 rating, and Robert Christgau rated it an "A-", saying, "Thing is, I can use some new punk rage in my life, and unless you're a fan of Goldman Sachs and BP Petroleum, so can you. What's more, better it come from a 45-year-old woman who knows how to throw her weight around than from the zitty newbies and tattooed road dogs who churn most of it out these days. I know—for her, BP Petroleum is just something else to pretend about. But the emotion fueling her pretense is cathartic nevertheless." In support of the release, Hole toured extensively between 2010 and 2012 throughout North America and Europe, as well as performing in Russia and Brazil.
On March 28, 2011, Love, Erlandson, Patty Schemel and Auf der Maur appeared at the New York screening of Schemel's documentary Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel at the Museum of Modern Art. The appearance was the first time in thirteen years that all four members appeared together in public. Schemel had expressed a desire to record with Love, Erlandson and Auf der Maur stating "nothing has been discussed, but I have a feeling." After the screening, the four took part in a Q&A session where Love stated: "For me, as much as I love playing with Patty – and I would play with her in five seconds again, and everyone onstage – if it's not moving forward, I don't wanna do it. That's just my thing. There's rumblings; there's always bloody rumblings. But if it's not miserable and it's going forward and I'm happy with it ... that's all I have to say about that question."
In May 2011, a music video for "Samantha" was shot in Istanbul, although it remained officially unreleased. In September 2011, Scott Lipps joined the band, replacing drummer Stu Fisher. In April 2012, Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur and Schemel reunited at the Public Assembly in New York for a two-song set, including "Miss World" and the Wipers' "Over the Edge," at an after-party for the Hit So Hard documentary. The performance marked the first time the four members performed together since 1998 after Schemel's departure and the 2002 breakup of the band.
On December 29, 2012, Love performed a solo acoustic set in New York City, and in January 2013, performed at the Sundance Film Festival under her own name. She booked further performances across North America as a solo act, with Larkin, bassist Shawn Dailey, and Lipps as her backing band.
2014 – 2016: Second disbandment
On December 28, 2013, Love posted two photos of herself with Erlandson on Facebook and Twitter, with a caption reading: "And this just happened ... 2014 going to be a very interesting year." Love also tagged Melissa Auf der Maur as well as Hole's former manager, Peter Mensch, in the post, alluding to a reconciliation with Erlandson and possible reunion in 2014.
On April 2, 2014, Rolling Stone reported that the Celebrity Skin line-up of the band had reunited (with Patty Schemel in lieu of Samantha Maloney). Rolling Stone erroneously reported Love's upcoming solo single, "Wedding Day" to be a product of this reunion. Shortly after, Love curtailed her statement, saying: "We may have made out but there is no talk of marriage. It's very frail, nothing might happen, and now the band are all flipping out on me." On May 1, in an interview with Pitchfork, Love discussed the possibility of a reunion, and also stated it had been "a mistake" releasing Nobody's Daughter as a Hole record in 2010. "Eric was right—I kind of cheapened the name, even though I'm legally allowed to use it. I should save "Hole" for the lineup everybody wants to see and had the balls to put Nobody's Daughter under my own name." Love further discussed the possibility of reuniting the band, saying:
No one's been dormant. Patty teaches drumming and drums in three indie bands. Melissa has her metal-nerd thing going on—her dream is to play Castle Donington with Dokken. Eric hasn't flipped—I jammed with him, he's still doing his Thurston [Moore]-crazy tunings, still corresponding with Kevin Shields. We all get along great. There are bands who reunite and hate each others' guts.
2019 – present: Possible reformation and attempted reunions
In October 2019, Hole rehearsed at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Los Angeles. Nothing transpired after the event, since Love had relocated to the United Kingdom afterwards. In March 2020, Love and Auf Der Maur planned a performance at the "Bans Off My Body" event, which was eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artistry
Composition
Initially, Hole drew inspiration from no wave and experimental bands, which is evident in their earliest recordings, specifically "Retard Girl", but frontwoman Love also drew from a variety of influences. Love cited post-punk group Echo & the Bunnymen and classic rock such as Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The band's first album, Pretty on the Inside, was heavily influenced by noise and punk rock, using discordant melodies, distortion, and feedback, with Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screams. Love described the band's earliest songwriting as being based on "really crazy Sonic Youth tunings." Nonetheless, Love claimed to have aimed for a pop sound early on: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band," she told Flipside magazine in 1991. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band the Germs. In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."
The band's second album Live Through This, captured a less abrasive sound, while maintaining the group's original punk roots. "I want this record to be shocking to the people who don't think we have a soft edge, and at the same time, [to know] that we haven't lost our very, very hard edge," Love told VH1 in 1994. The group's third album, Celebrity Skin, incorporated power pop into their hard rock sound, and was heavily inspired by California bands; Love was also influenced by Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine while writing the album. The group's 2010 release, Nobody's Daughter, featured a more folk rock-oriented sound, utilizing acoustic guitar and softer melodies.
The group's chord progressions by and large drew on elements of punk music, which Love described as "grungey", although not necessarily grunge. Critics described their song style as "deceptively wispy and strummy," combined with "gunshot guitar choruses." Although the group's sound changed over the course of their career, the dynamic between beauty and ugliness has often been noted, particularly due to the layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated arrangements.
Lyrical content
In a 1991 interview, Love stated that lyrics were "the most important" element of songwriting for her. Her lyrics explored a variety of themes throughout Hole's career, including body image, rape, child abuse, addiction, celebrity, suicide, elitism, and inferiority complex; all of which were addressed mainly from a female, and often feminist standpoint. This underlying feminism in Love's lyrics often led the public and critics to mistakenly associate her with the riot grrrl movement, of which Love was highly critical.
In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place [beautiful imagery] next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on Live Through This as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from Pretty on the Inside were excisions from her journals.
Throughout Hole's career, Love's lyrics were often influenced by literature: The title of the band's second album Live Through This, for example (as well as lyrics from the track "Asking for It") is directly drawn from Gone With the Wind; and the group's single "Celebrity Skin" (the title track to their 1998 album), contains quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Dante Rossetti's poem A Superscription. Love had had a minor background in literature, having briefly studied English literature in her early twenties.
Performances
Throughout the duration of the 1990s, the band received widespread media coverage due to Love's often rambunctious and unpredictable behavior onstage. The band often destroyed equipment and guitars at the end of concerts, and Love would ramble between songs, bring fans onstage, and stage dive, sometimes returning with her clothes torn off of her or sustaining injuries. In a 1995 New York Magazine article, journalist John Homans addressed Love's frequent stage diving during Hole's concerts:
The most shocking, frightening, and fascinating image in rock in the last few years is Courtney Love's stage dive ... When some male performers do it, it looks like muscular, frat-boy fun, controlled aggression ... For obvious reasons, the practice was strictly no-girls-allowed, but Love, typically, decided that she wanted to do it, too. Groped, ravaged, she compared the experience to being raped, wrote a song about it, and now does it just about every show.
Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and [the rest of the band] would just kind of stand there." The majority of Love's chaotic behavior onstage was a result of heavy drug use at the time, which she admitted: "I was completely high on dope; I cannot remember much about it." She later criticized her behavior during that time, saying: "I [saw] pictures of how I looked. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed. There's death and there's disease and there's misery and there's giving up your soul ... The human spirit mixed with certain powders is not the person, it's [a] demonic presence."
Love's stage attire also garnered notoriety, influenced in part by Carroll Baker's wardrobe in the film Baby Doll (1956). The style was later dubbed "kinderwhore" by the media, and consisted of babydoll dresses, slips and nightgowns, and smeared makeup. Kurt Loder likened her onstage attire to a "debauched ragdoll", and John Peel noted in his review of the band's 1994 Reading Festival performance, that "[Love], swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, ... would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." Rolling Stone referred to the style as "a slightly more politically charged version of grunge; apathy turned into ruinous angst, which soon became high fashion's favorite pose."
The band's set lists for live shows were often loose, featuring improvisational jams and rough performances of unreleased songs. By 1998, their live performances had become less aggressive and more restrained, although Love continued to bring fans onstage, and would often go into the crowd while singing.
Legacy
Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010. In spite of Love's often polarizing reputation in the media, Hole received consistent critical praise for their output, and was often noted for the predominant feminist commentary found in Love's lyrics, which scholars have credited as "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness". Love's subversive onstage persona and public image coincided with the band's songs, which expressed "pain, sorrow, and anger, but [an] underlying message of survival, particularly survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances." Music journalist Maria Raha expressed a similar sentiment in regard to the band's significance to third-wave feminism, stating, "Whether you love Courtney [Love] or hate her, Hole was the highest-profile female-fronted band of the '90s to openly and directly sing about feminism."
While Rolling Stone compared the effect of Love's marriage to Cobain on the band to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they noted that "Love's confrontational stage presence, as well as her gut-wrenching vocals and powerful punk-pop songcraft, made her an alternative-rock star in her own right." Author Nick Wise made a similar comparison in discussion of the band's public image, stating, "Not since Yoko Ono's marriage to John Lennon has a woman's personal life and exploits within the rock arena been so analyzed and dissected." The band has been cited as a major influence on several contemporary artists, including indie singer-songwriter Scout Niblett, Brody Dalle (of The Distillers and Spinnerette), Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, Tove Lo, Tegan and Sara, and the British rock band Nine Black Alps. The band ranked at number 77 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists list.
Materials loss
In 2008 a fire swept through Universal Studios Hollywood destroying buildings belonging to Universal Music Group. It was confirmed, in 2019, that the entire Hole back catalogue, along with hundreds of other artists' music, was completely lost, meaning reissues and remasters are now unlikely. Courtney Love and the band were one of the artists suing UMG for the loss; however, on August 16, 2019, the band was removed from that lawsuit as it was amended "based on UMG's representations that none of Hole's original masters were destroyed (subject to confirmation)".
Members
Timeline
Discography
Pretty on the Inside (1991)
Live Through This (1994)
Celebrity Skin (1998)
Nobody's Daughter (2010)
Accolades
{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Nominated work(s)
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|Grammy Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Rock Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|rowspan=3 style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Rock Song
| rowspan=2|"Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
| 2000
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|MTV Video Music Awards
| 1995
| Best Alternative Video
| "Doll Parts"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| 1999
| Best Cinematography
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|NME Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Band
| Hole
|
|rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|-
| Best Single
| "Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Spin Readers' Poll Awards
| 1994
| Album of the Year
| Live Through This
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
References
Sources
External links
Hole at Billboard
1989 establishments in California
2002 disestablishments in California
2009 establishments in California
2012 disestablishments in California
Alternative rock groups from California
American noise rock music groups
Punk rock groups from California
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups disestablished in 2002
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Sympathy for the Record Industry artists
Caroline Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Sub Pop artists
Mercury Records artists
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
Feminist musicians
Third-wave feminism
Grunge musical groups
Courtney Love
Articles which contain graphical timelines
20th-century American guitarists
City Slang artists
Female-fronted musical groups | false | [
"Steffi Graf was the defending champion, but lost in the semifinals to Gabriela Sabatini. Monica Seles won the title by defeating Gabriela Sabatini in 3 hours and 47 minutes in what was the longest final by time played in the tournament's history.\n\nSeeds\n\nNote\n Martina Navratilova had qualified but withdrew due to knee surgery\n\nDraw\n\nFinals\n NB: The final was the best of 5 sets while all other rounds were the best of 3 sets.\n\nSee also\nWTA Tour Championships appearances\n\nReferences\n\nSingles 1990\n1990 WTA Tour",
"What For? is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Toro y Moi (also known as Chaz Bear), released on April 7, 2015, by Carpark Records. The album includes 10 tracks at a run time of 36:38. Prior to the album release, Toro y Moi revealed three teaser tracks. These tracks include: \"Empty Nesters\", \"Buffalo\", and \"Run Baby Run\". This release follows his 2013 studio album Anything in Return.\n\nThe album debuted on The Billboard 200 on April 4, 2015. The record peaked at 123rd position and stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for one week. On the Top Rock Albums Billboard charts, the record peaked at the 26th position. The album was on the Rock Albums chart for 1 week. Prior to this release, Chaz's Anything in Return album was also on The Billboard 200 chart. The album ranked in the 60th position on February 9, 2013. Ever since 2011, all of Toro y Moi's studio albums have peaked on The Billboard 200 chart.\n\nBackground \nPrior to his release of What For?, Chaz was known as an early pioneer for the late 2000's genre of chillwave. In Chaz's fourth album, he pursued a stylistic change to a pop-guitar/indie-rock sound rather than continuing his trend of exploring synth-pop, electronic, and house music. When approaching his fourth studio album, Chaz states in an article that: “I’ve done electronic R&B and more traditional recorded type R&B stuff – I just wanted to see what else was out there”. Many reputable news sources when evaluating the What For? album likened it to 70's \"indie rock\". An NPR article discussed how Chaz's new sound can also be likened to those during the 70's heyday.\n\nMusic Videos \nDuring the What For? album cycle, Toro y Moi had released a series of three music videos. The songs with videos include: \"Half Dome\", \"Lilly\", and \"Empty Nesters\". The first video for this album was \"Empty Nesters\". The video was released on February 19, 2015. The video is shot, written, and directed by Chaz Bear. The video was released a month after the premiere of the song on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio show. The video for \"Lilly\" was released on April 30, 2015, and was directed by HARRYS. The final video for the What If? album cycle was \"Half Dome\". The video was released on September 18, 2015, and was directed by R. Adam Prieto. The video includes visuals of Chaz exploring the Yosemite National Park.\n\nAlbum Tour \nDuring 2015, Chaz had two tours in relation to his What For? album release. The first set of tour dates took place between February and May 2015. The first tour consisted of only North American tour dates. While on tour, Chaz was accompanied by a variety of different artists who opened for him. These artists include: Vinyl Williams, Mattson 2, and Keath Mead. Chaz began the tour in the Oakland, California; where his current residence is. The concert took place on February 26 at the New Parish concert venue. While on the tour, Chaz performed at the Hangout Music Festival and Coachella. During his time at Coachella, he recorded a short EP based on his live performance. The EP was titled: Spotify Sessions. It included live versions of tracks from the What For? album. These tracks include: \"What You Want\", \"Buffalo\", \"Empty Nesters\", \"The Flight\", and \"Yeah Right\". The first tour of the year concluded in Austin, Texas. The final concert took place on May 20 at Emo's Austin concert venue. Chaz was accompanied by Keath Mead during this final performance.\n\nThe second set of tour dates took place between June and November 2015. While on his second tour of the year, Chaz played at a variety of venues and festivals worldwide. These festivals include: Outside Lands, Capitol Hill, Super Bock Super Rock Festival, Lollapalooza, and many more. The second tour also began in the Bay Area. Chaz performed at the Rickshaw Stop venue in San Francisco, on June 30. The second tour concluded at the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas. The festival took place betwen November 6 and 8 of 2015. Chaz performed in 74 live performances throughout the year of 2015 for his What For? album cycle.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Chaz Bundick – vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass guitar, drums, percussion, design, engineering, layout, mixing, production\n Anthony Ferraro – piano (3)\n Aaron Gold – drums (3)\n Patrick Jeffords – bass (10)\n Julian Lynch – clarinet, saxophone and synthesizer (10)\n Keath Mead – guitars (7)\n Ruban Nielson – guitars and background vocals (8)\n Andy Woodward – drums (4, 7, 8, 9, 10)\n Christos – artwork\n Steve Fallone – mastering\n Patrick Jones – mixing\n Josh Terris – photography\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums\nToro y Moi albums\nCarpark Records albums"
]
|
[
"Hole (band)",
"1999-2002: Final tour and disbandment",
"what was the final tour?",
"In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson,"
]
| C_40b826cb017c484cbcaddd848b55bd96_0 | why did they disband after this tour? | 2 | Why did the band Hole disband after their tour in the winter of 1998-1999? | Hole (band) | In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band. The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 18, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999. In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website in 2002. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album. CANNOTANSWER | In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. | Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Influenced by Los Angeles' punk rock scene, the band's debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), was produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and attracted critical interest from British and American alternative press. Their second album, Live Through This, released 1994 by DGC Records, which featured less aggressive melodies and more restrained lyrical content, was widely acclaimed and reached platinum status within a year of its release. Their third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), marked a notable departure from their earlier punk influences, boasting a more commercially viable sound; the album sold around 2 million copies worldwide, and earned them significant critical acclaim.
They disbanded in 2002, and the members individually pursued other projects. Eight years later in 2010, Hole was reformed by Love with new members, despite Erlandson's claim that the reformation breached a mutual contract he had with her. The reformed band released the album Nobody's Daughter (2010), which had originally been conceived as Love's second solo album. In 2013, Love retired the Hole name, releasing new material and touring as a solo artist.
Hole received several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. They were also commercially successful, selling over three million records in the United States alone, and had a far-reaching influence on contemporary female artists. Music and feminist scholars have also recognized the band as the most high-profile musical group of the 1990s to discuss gender issues in their songs, due to Love's aggressive and violent lyrical content, which often addressed themes of body image, abuse, and sexual exploitation.
Background
Hole formed after Eric Erlandson responded to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in The Recycler in the summer of 1989. The advertisement simply read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." "She called me up and talked my ear off," said Erlandson. "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought "Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?" She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like "I know you're the right one", and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet." In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him" and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist." In his 2012 book, Letters to Kurt, Erlandson revealed that he and Love had a sexual relationship during their first year together in the band, which Love also confirmed.
Love had been living a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in numerous music scenes and living in various cities along the West Coast. After unsuccessful attempts at forming bands in San Francisco (where she was briefly a member of Faith No More) and Portland, Love relocated to Los Angeles, where she found work as an actress in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell). Erlandson, a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, was working as a royalties manager for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.
Love had originally wanted to name the band Sweet Baby Crystal Powered by God, but opted for the name Hole instead. During an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, Love claimed the name for the band was partly inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea that read: "There is a hole that pierces right through me." She also cited a conversation with her mother as the primary inspiration for the band's name, in which her mother told her that she couldn't live her life "with a hole running through her." Love also acknowledged the "obvious" genital reference in the band's name, alluding to the vagina.
Career
1989 – 1991: Early work and indie success
In the months preceding the band's full formation, Love and Erlandson would write and record in the evenings at a rehearsal space in Hollywood, loaned to them by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; during the day, Love worked as a stripper to support the band and purchase amplifiers and their backline for live shows. Hole's first official rehearsal took place at Fortress Studios in Hollywood with Love, Erlandson and Lisa Roberts on bass. According to Erlandson, "these two girls show up dressed completely crazy, we set up and they said, "okay, just start playing something." I started playing and they started screaming at the top of their lungs for two or three hours. Crazy lyrics and screaming. I said to myself, "most people would just run away from this really fast. But I heard something in Courtney's voice and lyrics." Initially, the band had no percussion until Love met drummer Caroline Rue, and later recruited a third guitarist, Mike Geisbrecht. Hole's first show took place at Raji's, a small bar in Hollywood, in September 1989. By early 1990, Geisbrecht and Roberts had both left the band, which led to the recruitment of bassist Jill Emery.
Hole released their no wave-influenced debut single "Retard Girl" in April 1990, and followed it with "Dicknail" in 1991, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, respectively. According to disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, Love would often approach him at a Denny's on Sunset Blvd. where he went for coffee in the mornings, and convinced him to give "Retard Girl" airtime on his station KROQ-FM.
In 1991, the band signed onto Caroline Records to release their debut album, and Love sought Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to produce the record. She sent a letter, a Hello Kitty barrette, and copies of the band's early singles to her, mentioning that the band greatly admired Gordon's work and appreciated "... the production of the SST record" (either referring to Sonic Youth's album Sister or EVOL). Gordon, impressed by the band's singles, agreed to produce the album, with assistance from Gumball's Don Fleming. The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in September 1991 to positive reception from underground critics, branded "loud, ugly and deliberately shocking," and earned a spot on Spins "20 Best Albums of the Year" list. It was also voted album of the year by New York's Village Voice and peaked at number 59 on the UK albums chart. The album spawned one single, "Teenage Whore", which entered the UK Indie Chart at number one, as well as the band's debut music video for the song "Garbadge Man".
Musically and lyrically, Pretty on the Inside was abrasive and drew on elements of punk rock and sludge metal, characterized by overt noise and feedback, chaotic guitar riffs, contrasting tempos, graphic lyrics, and a variation of Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screaming. In later years, Love referred to the album as "unlistenable", despite its critical accolades and eventual cult following. The band embarked on a European tour in the fall of 1991 supporting Mudhoney. They also toured intermittently in the United States between July and December 1991, playing primarily at hard rock and punk clubs, including CBGB and the Whisky A Go Go, where they opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. In a write-up by the Los Angeles Times on the band's final show of the tour, it was noted that Love smashed the headstock of her Rickenbacker guitar onstage.
In mid-1991, the band began to get the attention of the major labels. The first to court them was Maverick — a Warner subsidiary founded by Madonna and music executive Freddy DeMann. Love, however, was uninterested: "[They] would have me riding on elephants. They don't know what I am. For them, I'm a visual, period." She was also uneasy about sharing the spotlight on a label so heavily associated with one of the industry's most iconic female performers. In a 1992 interview with Vanity Fair, Love described Madonna's interest as "kind of like Dracula's interest in his latest victim."
1992 – 1999: Mainstream success
1992 – 1995: Live Through This
Love and Erlandson began writing new material for a second Hole album in 1992, in the midst of Love's pregnancy with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Love's desire to take the band in a more melodic and controlled rock format led bassist Emery to leave the band, and drummer Caroline Rue followed. In an advertisement to find a new bass player, Love wrote: "[I want] someone who can play ok, and stand in front of 30,000 people, take off her shirt and have 'fuck you' written on her tits. If you're not afraid of me and you're not afraid to fucking say it, send a letter. No more pussies, no more fake girls, I want a whore from hell." In April 1992, drummer Patty Schemel was recruited after an audition in Los Angeles, but the band spent the remainder of the year without a bassist; Love, Schemel, and Erlandson began to write material together in the interim.
Hole signed to Geffen's subsidiary DGC label with an eight-album contract in late 1992. In the spring of 1993, the band released their single "Beautiful Son", which was recorded in Seattle with producer Jack Endino as a fill-in bass player; Love also played bass on the single's b-side "20 Years In the Dakota", as well as on their contribution to the 1993 Germs tribute album A Small Circle of Friends. In the spring of 1993, Love and Erlandson recruited Janitor Joe bassist Kristen Pfaff, and the band toured the United Kingdom in the summer of that year (including the Phoenix Festival on July 16), mainly performing material from their upcoming major label debut, Live Through This, which they recorded at Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia in October 1993.
Live Through This was released on April 12, 1994, one week after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his Seattle home. In the wake of Love's family tragedy, Live Through This was a critical success. It spawned several popular singles, including "Doll Parts", "Violet", and "Miss World", going multi-platinum and being hailed "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine. NME called the album "a personal but secretive thrash-pop opera of urban nihilism and passionate dumb thinks," and Rolling Stone said the album "may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape."
Despite the critical praise for Live Through This, rumors circulated insinuating that Cobain had actually written the majority of the album, though the band vehemently denies this. The band's drummer Patty Schemel, who had been friends with Cobain since the late 1980s, said: "There's that myth that Kurt [Cobain] wrote all our songs— it's not true. Courtney and Eric wrote Live Through This." The band did, however, state that Love convinced Cobain to provide backing vocals on "Asking for It" and "Softer, Softest" while visiting the studio, and music producers and engineers present during the recording sessions noted that Cobain seemed "completely unfamiliar" with the songs. According to Rolling Stone rock journalist Gavin Edwards, Love and Cobain had written songs together in the past, but opted to not release them because it was "a bit too redolent of John and Yoko."
In 1994, bassist Kristen Pfaff went into a drug treatment facility to treat her heroin addiction. Pfaff contemplated leaving the band for health reasons. In June 1994, she was found dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of her Seattle home, 2 months after the death of Cobain. The band put their impending tour on hold, pulling out of the upcoming Lollapalooza festival. Pfaff's life is, according to Pfaff's brother, the subject of an upcoming book by British authors Sara Hawys Roberts and Guy Mankowski, who he's collaborating with.
Recruiting bassist Melissa Auf der Maur over the summer, they commenced their world tour on August 26 at the Reading Festival in England, giving a performance that John Peel described as "teetering on the edge of chaos." The band embarked on a worldwide tour throughout late 1994 and for the duration of 1995, with appearances at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Saturday Night Live, the Big Day Out festival, MTV Unplugged, the 1995 Reading Festival, Lollapalooza 1995, and at the MTV Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for the "Doll Parts" music video.
Love's reckless stage presence during the tour became a media spectacle, drawing press from MTV and other outlets due to her unpredictable performances. While touring with Sonic Youth, Love got into a physical fight with Kathleen Hanna backstage at a 1995 Lollapalooza festival and punched her in the face. In an August 1995 band interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Patty Schemel formally came out as a lesbian, saying: "It's important. I'm not out there with that fucking pink flag or anything, but it's good for other people who live somewhere else in some small town who feel freaky about being gay to know that there's other people who are and that it's okay." In a retrospective interview, Schemel said:
Toward the end of the tour, the band released their first EP, titled Ask for It, in September 1995; it featured 1991 Peel session recordings, as well as covers of songs by Wipers and The Velvet Underground. The band performed its last show of the year on September 3, 1995 at the Molson Polar Beach Party in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. The concert was a promotional event for the Molson Brewery, and also featured performances by Metallica, Veruca Salt, and Moist.
1996 – 1999: Celebrity Skin
In 1996, the band recorded and released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996) soundtrack, the band's first studio song to feature Melissa Auf der Maur on bass, and produced by Ric Ocasek. Hole released two retrospective albums during this time: firstly, their second EP, titled The First Session (1997), which consisted of a complete version of the band's first recording session at Rudy's Rising Star in Los Angeles in March 1990, some of which had been bootlegged widely years prior. It featured the group's first ever recorded track, "Turpentine", which had previously been unreleased to the public. The same year, the band released their first compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), featuring early singles, b-sides and recent live tracks.
In 1997, the band entered Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles after attempts to write new material in Miami, New Orleans, London, and New York. Recorded over a ten-month period, Hole's third studio album, Celebrity Skin (1998), adopted a complete new sound for the band, incorporating elements of power pop, and had Love drawing influences from Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine. According to Erlandson, Love was more focused on song-writing and singing than playing guitar on the record; Love stated that her aim for the album was to "deconstruct the California sound" in the L.A. tradition of bands like The Doors, The Beach Boys and The Byrds. In addition to Hole, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan entered the studio and helped perfect five of the album's twelve songs. Love, who felt she was in a creative slump, likened Corgan's presence in the studio to "a math teacher who wouldn't give you the answers but was making you solve the problems yourself."
Upon the album's release, Corgan told CNN that he should have "been given credit [for writing the entire album]." Erlandson responded to Corgan's statements in a Rolling Stone interview, commenting: "We were working on all the stuff that Courtney and I had already written. Billy really facilitated things, in a way ... I would bring in the music, Courtney would start coming up with lyrics right away, and [Billy] would help map it all out." Erlandson also stated: "Courtney writes all her own lyrics. Nobody else is writing those lyrics and nobody ever has." One journalist took note of the controversy when reviewing the album, stating: "Back in 1994, the acclaim for Live Through This was undercut by whispers that Love's late husband wrote the album. Combine those conspiracy theories with the unfounded but persistent rumor that Cobain was actually murdered, and it is no surprise that, in the song "Celebrity Skin", Love calls herself a walking study in demonology."
Although Schemel is listed as drummer in the liner notes of the record, her drumming does not actually appear on the record; she was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo, under pressure from producer Michael Beinhorn. After the replacement, Schemel quit the band. Though Love and Erlandson had authorized Schemel's replacement, both expressed regret in retrospect, and Love stated in 2011 that Beinhorn was notorious for replacing drummers on records, and referred to him as "a Nazi". After Schemel's departure, the band hired drummer Samantha Maloney for their upcoming tours and music videos.
Celebrity Skin was a critical success with strong sales and successful singles, including the title track, "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", and "Awful". The album received largely positive reviews, with praise from music periodicals such as Rolling Stone, NME, and Blender, as well as a four-star review from the Los Angeles Times, calling it a "wild emotional ride" sure to be "one of the most dissected and debated collections of the year." The album peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200, and garnered the band its first and only number 1 single, "Celebrity Skin", which topped the Modern Rock Tracks. "Malibu", released December 29, 1998, was the album's second single; it charted at number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks.
1999 – 2002: Final tour and disbandment
In the winter of 1998–99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band.
The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 17, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999.
In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. In April 2002, Love called The Howard Stern Show and said she had written nine songs with songwriter Linda Perry, but less than a month later Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004, featuring several of the songs written with Perry. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album.
2009 – 2013: Reformation and name dispute
On June 17, 2009, seven years after Hole's disbandment, NME reported that Love was re-forming the band with guitarist Micko Larkin for an upcoming album, on which Melissa Auf der Maur would be providing backup vocals. Days later, Melissa Auf der Maur stated in an interview that she was unaware of any reunion, but said Love had asked her to contribute harmonies to an upcoming album. In response, Eric Erlandson stated in an interview with Spin magazine that a reunion could not take place without his involvement, citing that he and Love "have a contract."
Hole launched a new website and various social media pages on January 1, 2010, and performed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in February. On February 17, 2010 they played a full set at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, with support from Little Fish. On March 16, the first Hole single in ten years was released, titled "Skinny Little Bitch"; it peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Rock Chart, and at No. 21 on the Alternative Singles chart. The track also received airplay on Active rock and alternative radio.
Nobody's Daughter was released on April 26, 2010 worldwide on Mercury Records, and was received moderately well by music critics. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, but noted "[while Love] was an absolute monster vocalist in the nineties, the greatest era ever for rock singers ... She doesn't have that power in her lungs anymore – barely a trace. But at least she remembers, and that means something in itself." The magazine also referred to the album as "not a true success", but a "noble effort". Love's voice, which had become noticeably raspier, was compared to the likes of Bob Dylan. NME gave the album a 6/10 rating, and Robert Christgau rated it an "A-", saying, "Thing is, I can use some new punk rage in my life, and unless you're a fan of Goldman Sachs and BP Petroleum, so can you. What's more, better it come from a 45-year-old woman who knows how to throw her weight around than from the zitty newbies and tattooed road dogs who churn most of it out these days. I know—for her, BP Petroleum is just something else to pretend about. But the emotion fueling her pretense is cathartic nevertheless." In support of the release, Hole toured extensively between 2010 and 2012 throughout North America and Europe, as well as performing in Russia and Brazil.
On March 28, 2011, Love, Erlandson, Patty Schemel and Auf der Maur appeared at the New York screening of Schemel's documentary Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel at the Museum of Modern Art. The appearance was the first time in thirteen years that all four members appeared together in public. Schemel had expressed a desire to record with Love, Erlandson and Auf der Maur stating "nothing has been discussed, but I have a feeling." After the screening, the four took part in a Q&A session where Love stated: "For me, as much as I love playing with Patty – and I would play with her in five seconds again, and everyone onstage – if it's not moving forward, I don't wanna do it. That's just my thing. There's rumblings; there's always bloody rumblings. But if it's not miserable and it's going forward and I'm happy with it ... that's all I have to say about that question."
In May 2011, a music video for "Samantha" was shot in Istanbul, although it remained officially unreleased. In September 2011, Scott Lipps joined the band, replacing drummer Stu Fisher. In April 2012, Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur and Schemel reunited at the Public Assembly in New York for a two-song set, including "Miss World" and the Wipers' "Over the Edge," at an after-party for the Hit So Hard documentary. The performance marked the first time the four members performed together since 1998 after Schemel's departure and the 2002 breakup of the band.
On December 29, 2012, Love performed a solo acoustic set in New York City, and in January 2013, performed at the Sundance Film Festival under her own name. She booked further performances across North America as a solo act, with Larkin, bassist Shawn Dailey, and Lipps as her backing band.
2014 – 2016: Second disbandment
On December 28, 2013, Love posted two photos of herself with Erlandson on Facebook and Twitter, with a caption reading: "And this just happened ... 2014 going to be a very interesting year." Love also tagged Melissa Auf der Maur as well as Hole's former manager, Peter Mensch, in the post, alluding to a reconciliation with Erlandson and possible reunion in 2014.
On April 2, 2014, Rolling Stone reported that the Celebrity Skin line-up of the band had reunited (with Patty Schemel in lieu of Samantha Maloney). Rolling Stone erroneously reported Love's upcoming solo single, "Wedding Day" to be a product of this reunion. Shortly after, Love curtailed her statement, saying: "We may have made out but there is no talk of marriage. It's very frail, nothing might happen, and now the band are all flipping out on me." On May 1, in an interview with Pitchfork, Love discussed the possibility of a reunion, and also stated it had been "a mistake" releasing Nobody's Daughter as a Hole record in 2010. "Eric was right—I kind of cheapened the name, even though I'm legally allowed to use it. I should save "Hole" for the lineup everybody wants to see and had the balls to put Nobody's Daughter under my own name." Love further discussed the possibility of reuniting the band, saying:
No one's been dormant. Patty teaches drumming and drums in three indie bands. Melissa has her metal-nerd thing going on—her dream is to play Castle Donington with Dokken. Eric hasn't flipped—I jammed with him, he's still doing his Thurston [Moore]-crazy tunings, still corresponding with Kevin Shields. We all get along great. There are bands who reunite and hate each others' guts.
2019 – present: Possible reformation and attempted reunions
In October 2019, Hole rehearsed at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Los Angeles. Nothing transpired after the event, since Love had relocated to the United Kingdom afterwards. In March 2020, Love and Auf Der Maur planned a performance at the "Bans Off My Body" event, which was eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artistry
Composition
Initially, Hole drew inspiration from no wave and experimental bands, which is evident in their earliest recordings, specifically "Retard Girl", but frontwoman Love also drew from a variety of influences. Love cited post-punk group Echo & the Bunnymen and classic rock such as Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The band's first album, Pretty on the Inside, was heavily influenced by noise and punk rock, using discordant melodies, distortion, and feedback, with Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screams. Love described the band's earliest songwriting as being based on "really crazy Sonic Youth tunings." Nonetheless, Love claimed to have aimed for a pop sound early on: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band," she told Flipside magazine in 1991. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band the Germs. In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."
The band's second album Live Through This, captured a less abrasive sound, while maintaining the group's original punk roots. "I want this record to be shocking to the people who don't think we have a soft edge, and at the same time, [to know] that we haven't lost our very, very hard edge," Love told VH1 in 1994. The group's third album, Celebrity Skin, incorporated power pop into their hard rock sound, and was heavily inspired by California bands; Love was also influenced by Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine while writing the album. The group's 2010 release, Nobody's Daughter, featured a more folk rock-oriented sound, utilizing acoustic guitar and softer melodies.
The group's chord progressions by and large drew on elements of punk music, which Love described as "grungey", although not necessarily grunge. Critics described their song style as "deceptively wispy and strummy," combined with "gunshot guitar choruses." Although the group's sound changed over the course of their career, the dynamic between beauty and ugliness has often been noted, particularly due to the layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated arrangements.
Lyrical content
In a 1991 interview, Love stated that lyrics were "the most important" element of songwriting for her. Her lyrics explored a variety of themes throughout Hole's career, including body image, rape, child abuse, addiction, celebrity, suicide, elitism, and inferiority complex; all of which were addressed mainly from a female, and often feminist standpoint. This underlying feminism in Love's lyrics often led the public and critics to mistakenly associate her with the riot grrrl movement, of which Love was highly critical.
In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place [beautiful imagery] next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on Live Through This as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from Pretty on the Inside were excisions from her journals.
Throughout Hole's career, Love's lyrics were often influenced by literature: The title of the band's second album Live Through This, for example (as well as lyrics from the track "Asking for It") is directly drawn from Gone With the Wind; and the group's single "Celebrity Skin" (the title track to their 1998 album), contains quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Dante Rossetti's poem A Superscription. Love had had a minor background in literature, having briefly studied English literature in her early twenties.
Performances
Throughout the duration of the 1990s, the band received widespread media coverage due to Love's often rambunctious and unpredictable behavior onstage. The band often destroyed equipment and guitars at the end of concerts, and Love would ramble between songs, bring fans onstage, and stage dive, sometimes returning with her clothes torn off of her or sustaining injuries. In a 1995 New York Magazine article, journalist John Homans addressed Love's frequent stage diving during Hole's concerts:
The most shocking, frightening, and fascinating image in rock in the last few years is Courtney Love's stage dive ... When some male performers do it, it looks like muscular, frat-boy fun, controlled aggression ... For obvious reasons, the practice was strictly no-girls-allowed, but Love, typically, decided that she wanted to do it, too. Groped, ravaged, she compared the experience to being raped, wrote a song about it, and now does it just about every show.
Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and [the rest of the band] would just kind of stand there." The majority of Love's chaotic behavior onstage was a result of heavy drug use at the time, which she admitted: "I was completely high on dope; I cannot remember much about it." She later criticized her behavior during that time, saying: "I [saw] pictures of how I looked. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed. There's death and there's disease and there's misery and there's giving up your soul ... The human spirit mixed with certain powders is not the person, it's [a] demonic presence."
Love's stage attire also garnered notoriety, influenced in part by Carroll Baker's wardrobe in the film Baby Doll (1956). The style was later dubbed "kinderwhore" by the media, and consisted of babydoll dresses, slips and nightgowns, and smeared makeup. Kurt Loder likened her onstage attire to a "debauched ragdoll", and John Peel noted in his review of the band's 1994 Reading Festival performance, that "[Love], swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, ... would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." Rolling Stone referred to the style as "a slightly more politically charged version of grunge; apathy turned into ruinous angst, which soon became high fashion's favorite pose."
The band's set lists for live shows were often loose, featuring improvisational jams and rough performances of unreleased songs. By 1998, their live performances had become less aggressive and more restrained, although Love continued to bring fans onstage, and would often go into the crowd while singing.
Legacy
Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010. In spite of Love's often polarizing reputation in the media, Hole received consistent critical praise for their output, and was often noted for the predominant feminist commentary found in Love's lyrics, which scholars have credited as "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness". Love's subversive onstage persona and public image coincided with the band's songs, which expressed "pain, sorrow, and anger, but [an] underlying message of survival, particularly survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances." Music journalist Maria Raha expressed a similar sentiment in regard to the band's significance to third-wave feminism, stating, "Whether you love Courtney [Love] or hate her, Hole was the highest-profile female-fronted band of the '90s to openly and directly sing about feminism."
While Rolling Stone compared the effect of Love's marriage to Cobain on the band to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they noted that "Love's confrontational stage presence, as well as her gut-wrenching vocals and powerful punk-pop songcraft, made her an alternative-rock star in her own right." Author Nick Wise made a similar comparison in discussion of the band's public image, stating, "Not since Yoko Ono's marriage to John Lennon has a woman's personal life and exploits within the rock arena been so analyzed and dissected." The band has been cited as a major influence on several contemporary artists, including indie singer-songwriter Scout Niblett, Brody Dalle (of The Distillers and Spinnerette), Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, Tove Lo, Tegan and Sara, and the British rock band Nine Black Alps. The band ranked at number 77 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists list.
Materials loss
In 2008 a fire swept through Universal Studios Hollywood destroying buildings belonging to Universal Music Group. It was confirmed, in 2019, that the entire Hole back catalogue, along with hundreds of other artists' music, was completely lost, meaning reissues and remasters are now unlikely. Courtney Love and the band were one of the artists suing UMG for the loss; however, on August 16, 2019, the band was removed from that lawsuit as it was amended "based on UMG's representations that none of Hole's original masters were destroyed (subject to confirmation)".
Members
Timeline
Discography
Pretty on the Inside (1991)
Live Through This (1994)
Celebrity Skin (1998)
Nobody's Daughter (2010)
Accolades
{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Nominated work(s)
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|Grammy Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Rock Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|rowspan=3 style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Rock Song
| rowspan=2|"Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
| 2000
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|MTV Video Music Awards
| 1995
| Best Alternative Video
| "Doll Parts"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| 1999
| Best Cinematography
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|NME Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Band
| Hole
|
|rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|-
| Best Single
| "Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Spin Readers' Poll Awards
| 1994
| Album of the Year
| Live Through This
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
References
Sources
External links
Hole at Billboard
1989 establishments in California
2002 disestablishments in California
2009 establishments in California
2012 disestablishments in California
Alternative rock groups from California
American noise rock music groups
Punk rock groups from California
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups disestablished in 2002
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Sympathy for the Record Industry artists
Caroline Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Sub Pop artists
Mercury Records artists
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
Feminist musicians
Third-wave feminism
Grunge musical groups
Courtney Love
Articles which contain graphical timelines
20th-century American guitarists
City Slang artists
Female-fronted musical groups | true | [
"These Kids Wear Crowns is a six-member Canadian power pop and pop-rock boy band, formed in 2009 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. They were \"discovered\" on MuchMusic's disBand and signed to a contract with Capitol Records/EMI. They have performed with acts such as Hedley, Faber Drive, Forever the Sickest Kids, Good Charlotte and Lights. The band's debut single and music video \"Break It Up\" debuted at No. 60 on the Canadian Hot 100. They re-issued their EP on August 31, 2010.\n\nIn Fall 2010, These Kids Wear Crowns returned to the studio to record their full-length album, entitled Jumpstart, which was released on March 1, 2011. One of the singles released was a cover of the Whitney Houston song \"I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)\" featuring Mexican actress and singer, Eiza González.\n\nMembers\n\nCurrent members\n\nAlexander Johnson - Lead vocals (2009–present)\nAlan Poettcker - Bass Guitar, vocals (2009–present)\nMatt Vink - Keyboards, Synthesisers, backing vocals (2009–present)\nJoe Porter - Guitar, backing vocals (2009–present)\nJoshua \"Gypsy\" McDaniel - Guitar, backing vocals (2009–present)\nJosh Mitchinson - Drums (2009–present)\n\nHistory\n\nFormation and Jumpstart\nAlex and Alan knew each other from high school, where they wrote songs together. Following a several year hiatus, in which Alex recorded some tracks as a rapper and Alan continued to hone his producing skills, they recorded a short EP as Goodnight Moon, but it was never released. Shortly after completing that CD, Alex and Alan formed Goodnight Medic along with Matt Vink, Brad Fry and Mark Sawatzky. Goodnight Medic placed in the top 10 of the 2008 Fox Seeds contest, but broke up in February 2009 via a Facebook announcement, stating \"We will be back again in the form of something great and new.\" Following the departure of Brad and Mark, Alex, Alan, and Matt formed a new group, recruiting guitarist Joe Porter. Drummer Josh Mitchinson found out about the project via MySpace and joined These Kids Wear Crowns as named by Matt. In summer 2009, TKWC recorded their original EP, recorded and produced at the Sound Suite in Abbotsford, British Columbia. The original EP was released on September 11, 2009. In Fall 2009, the band went on a cross-Canada tour with fellow Vancouver-area band A Trophy Life. During this tour, they received news that they were selected to appear on MuchMusic's disBand in Toronto, Ontario. Needing a second guitarist, they recruited A Trophy Life's guitarist Joshua \"Gypsy\" McDaniel.\n\nThey then appeared on disBand, receiving a \"thumbs up\" on the show. Later one of the judges from disBand, Mark Spicoluk visited the band in their home town, Chilliwack, British Columbia to attend a local concert. After TKWC was invited to perform at the showcase back in Toronto. This gained them interest from TQ Management and SL Feldman and Associates, in addition to numerous record labels. In early 2010, they traveled to Texas to record tracks. In April 2010, they shot their video for \"Break it Up\". In May 2010, they were the opening act for the Western Canadian leg of Faber Drive's \"Can't Keep a Secret Tour\" alongside Jesse Labelle and The Latency. In June 2010, they headlined their own tour dubbed \"The Not Really a Tour Tour\" with shows in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. In August 2010, it was announced that they would join Hedley on their \"The Show Must Go on the Road Tour\" alongside Lights and San Sebastian during September 2010. In September 2010, they filmed a video for \"Skeletons\", which was set to be released as the next single. On November 30, 2010, they released their original Christmas track \"Red White and You\" as an iTunes exclusive single.\n\nIn August 2010, they began recording their debut full-length album \"Jumpstart\", which will feature many new tracks in addition to a reworked version of \"We All Fall Down\" which was a track which appeared on the original EP, alongside \"Break it Up\", and \"Skeletons\". Jumpstart was released on March 1, 2011. The lead-off single is the title track \"Jumpstart\", which they first performed in November 2010. This track debuted nationally on December 31, 2010 when they performed it on MuchMusic's show NewMusicLive and subsequently the CityTV New Year's Eve Bash at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto later that evening. The televised performance attracted viewers from across the nation.\n\nIn 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns toured Australia.\n\nIn 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns filmed music videos for their singles Jumpstart, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, and Lifetime. The group's 2011 album debuted at No. 31.\n\nIn March 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns did a Canada-wide tour with Fefe Dobson. In May/June 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns did their first overseas performances in Singapore at Music Matters alongside Simple Plan.\n\nIn Summer 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns are touring across Canada once again performing at various festivals across the country.\n\nIn December 2011, These Kids Wear Crowns went overseas to Singapore again to perform on 31/12/2011 for 2012 Marina Bay Countown.\n\nThey will also be touring Canada with All Time Low, Marianas Trench and Simple Plan.\n\nThe group's EP debuted at No. 141 on the Canadian Albums Chart.\n\nThese Kids Wear Crowns will be appearing on the Soundwave Festival 2012.\n\nIn January 2015, singer Alexander Johnson announced he would be running for Parliament as a member of the Libertarian Party of Canada for the riding of Chilliwack-Hope.\n\nThe band is currently in the process of recording their second album.\n\nOn November 17, 2015, These Kids Wear Crowns released their second studio album, the rock-oriented \"Still Having Fun\", preceded by the single \"The Best Is Yet To Come\".\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nSingles from album Jumpstart\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nVimeo: These Kids Wear Crowns \"Jumpstart\" (Colin Minihan)\n\nCanadian pop punk groups\nMusical groups established in 2009\nMusical groups from British Columbia\nChilliwack\nCanadian alternative rock groups\n2009 establishments in British Columbia\nCanadian power pop groups\nCanadian pop rock music groups",
"Stereos are a Canadian pop band from Edmonton, Alberta, formed in 2008. Their musical style fuses aspects of electronic music, rock, and pop. Their breakout came from appearing on the MuchMusic original series, disBAND. In October 2009, they released their debut self-titled album, Stereos.\n\nBiography\n\n2008–2009: Early days and record deal\nThe band formed roughly two years prior to its 2008 appearance on disBAND under the name Stand By Me. After meeting disBAND Guru Greig Nori, Stand By Me was advised to change their name due to copyright issues. Turn It Up was chosen. Later, in order to perform several shows in Toronto, Ontario, Universal Music Canada A&R rep Mark Spicoluk advised the band to change their name again, and the band chose the name Stereos. After receiving the thumbs up from the judges from disBand, Stereos went to a large gig to receive a contract from the President of Universal Music Canada and judged by Kiss member Gene Simmons.\n\nOn June 4 their music video for \"Summer Girl\" debuted on the MuchMusic Countdown. The single also debuted at #2 on the Canadian Hot 100 based on the large number of downloads in the first week and in June 2009, Stereos' debut single, \"Summer Girl\" sold over 120,000 units in Canada and has been certified CRIA double platinum in digital downloads. The band released their self-titled debut album Stereos on October 20, 2009 and was certified gold by the CRIA in January 2010 with sales of over 40,000 copies. The band started their first ever Cross-Canada tour on November 7, 2009 in Windsor, Ontario.\n\n2010–2011: The Show Must Go...On The Road Tour and second studio album\nStereos went across Canada in March and April 2010 on Hedley's The Show Must Go...On The Road Tour. Hedley announced the tour in support of their new album The Show Must Go which was released November 17, 2009. \"Fefe Dobson and Stereos were along for the whole trek, while Faber Drive and Boys Like Girls joined on select dates.\"\n\nIn March 2010, the band received two Juno Award nominations which were for Best New Artist, and Best Pop Album. They released two other singles that charted moderately,\"Turn It Up\" peaked at #31, and \"Butterflies\" at #51. The song \"She Only Likes Me When She's Drunk\" failed to chart.\n\nStereos' second album, titled \"Uncontrollable\" was released on December 14, 2010. The first single from the album, \"Uncontrollable\" was released on October 25, 2010 and peaked at #42 on the Canadian Hot 100. The second single,\"Body Move\" was released in February 2011, just before their cross Canada tour. In mid April the band's drummer, Aaron, sustained a broken hand, leaving him unable to perform, causing the band to cancel their remaining shows.\n\n2019–present: 10-Year Reunion and Return from hiatus\nOn March 10, 2019, Stereos announced a 10-year reunion show to take place on May 11, 2019, at Toronto's Rec Room during Canadian Music Week on their Facebook page, which ended up selling out. A second 10-year reunion show in the band's hometown of Edmonton took place on August 16, 2019 and also sold out. On October 20, 2019, the band announced they were officially back in the studio recording new material. On February 3, 2020, the band announced via their social media pages that they would be releasing a brand new single, titled \"Sunset Gold\" which was released on February 28, 2020.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\nOther charted songs\n\nMusic videos\n\"Summer Girl\" — 2009\n\"Throw Ya Hands Up\" — 2009\n\"Turn It Up\" — 2009\n\"Butterflies\" — 2010\n\"Wingin' It Theme\" — 2010\n\"She Only Likes Me When She's Drunk\" — 2010\n\"Uncontrollable\" — 2010\n\"Body Move\" — 2011\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nStereos at Twitter\n\nMusical groups established in 2008\nMusical groups from Edmonton\nCanadian pop music groups\n2008 establishments in Alberta\nMusical groups disestablished in 2012\nMusical groups reestablished in 2019\n2012 disestablishments in Alberta"
]
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[
"Hole (band)",
"1999-2002: Final tour and disbandment",
"what was the final tour?",
"In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson,",
"why did they disband after this tour?",
"In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins."
]
| C_40b826cb017c484cbcaddd848b55bd96_0 | was this last tour successful? | 3 | Was the last tour of the band Hole in 1998-1999 successful? | Hole (band) | In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band. The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 18, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999. In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website in 2002. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album. CANNOTANSWER | Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, | Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Influenced by Los Angeles' punk rock scene, the band's debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), was produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and attracted critical interest from British and American alternative press. Their second album, Live Through This, released 1994 by DGC Records, which featured less aggressive melodies and more restrained lyrical content, was widely acclaimed and reached platinum status within a year of its release. Their third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), marked a notable departure from their earlier punk influences, boasting a more commercially viable sound; the album sold around 2 million copies worldwide, and earned them significant critical acclaim.
They disbanded in 2002, and the members individually pursued other projects. Eight years later in 2010, Hole was reformed by Love with new members, despite Erlandson's claim that the reformation breached a mutual contract he had with her. The reformed band released the album Nobody's Daughter (2010), which had originally been conceived as Love's second solo album. In 2013, Love retired the Hole name, releasing new material and touring as a solo artist.
Hole received several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. They were also commercially successful, selling over three million records in the United States alone, and had a far-reaching influence on contemporary female artists. Music and feminist scholars have also recognized the band as the most high-profile musical group of the 1990s to discuss gender issues in their songs, due to Love's aggressive and violent lyrical content, which often addressed themes of body image, abuse, and sexual exploitation.
Background
Hole formed after Eric Erlandson responded to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in The Recycler in the summer of 1989. The advertisement simply read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." "She called me up and talked my ear off," said Erlandson. "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought "Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?" She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like "I know you're the right one", and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet." In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him" and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist." In his 2012 book, Letters to Kurt, Erlandson revealed that he and Love had a sexual relationship during their first year together in the band, which Love also confirmed.
Love had been living a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in numerous music scenes and living in various cities along the West Coast. After unsuccessful attempts at forming bands in San Francisco (where she was briefly a member of Faith No More) and Portland, Love relocated to Los Angeles, where she found work as an actress in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell). Erlandson, a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, was working as a royalties manager for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.
Love had originally wanted to name the band Sweet Baby Crystal Powered by God, but opted for the name Hole instead. During an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, Love claimed the name for the band was partly inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea that read: "There is a hole that pierces right through me." She also cited a conversation with her mother as the primary inspiration for the band's name, in which her mother told her that she couldn't live her life "with a hole running through her." Love also acknowledged the "obvious" genital reference in the band's name, alluding to the vagina.
Career
1989 – 1991: Early work and indie success
In the months preceding the band's full formation, Love and Erlandson would write and record in the evenings at a rehearsal space in Hollywood, loaned to them by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; during the day, Love worked as a stripper to support the band and purchase amplifiers and their backline for live shows. Hole's first official rehearsal took place at Fortress Studios in Hollywood with Love, Erlandson and Lisa Roberts on bass. According to Erlandson, "these two girls show up dressed completely crazy, we set up and they said, "okay, just start playing something." I started playing and they started screaming at the top of their lungs for two or three hours. Crazy lyrics and screaming. I said to myself, "most people would just run away from this really fast. But I heard something in Courtney's voice and lyrics." Initially, the band had no percussion until Love met drummer Caroline Rue, and later recruited a third guitarist, Mike Geisbrecht. Hole's first show took place at Raji's, a small bar in Hollywood, in September 1989. By early 1990, Geisbrecht and Roberts had both left the band, which led to the recruitment of bassist Jill Emery.
Hole released their no wave-influenced debut single "Retard Girl" in April 1990, and followed it with "Dicknail" in 1991, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, respectively. According to disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, Love would often approach him at a Denny's on Sunset Blvd. where he went for coffee in the mornings, and convinced him to give "Retard Girl" airtime on his station KROQ-FM.
In 1991, the band signed onto Caroline Records to release their debut album, and Love sought Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to produce the record. She sent a letter, a Hello Kitty barrette, and copies of the band's early singles to her, mentioning that the band greatly admired Gordon's work and appreciated "... the production of the SST record" (either referring to Sonic Youth's album Sister or EVOL). Gordon, impressed by the band's singles, agreed to produce the album, with assistance from Gumball's Don Fleming. The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in September 1991 to positive reception from underground critics, branded "loud, ugly and deliberately shocking," and earned a spot on Spins "20 Best Albums of the Year" list. It was also voted album of the year by New York's Village Voice and peaked at number 59 on the UK albums chart. The album spawned one single, "Teenage Whore", which entered the UK Indie Chart at number one, as well as the band's debut music video for the song "Garbadge Man".
Musically and lyrically, Pretty on the Inside was abrasive and drew on elements of punk rock and sludge metal, characterized by overt noise and feedback, chaotic guitar riffs, contrasting tempos, graphic lyrics, and a variation of Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screaming. In later years, Love referred to the album as "unlistenable", despite its critical accolades and eventual cult following. The band embarked on a European tour in the fall of 1991 supporting Mudhoney. They also toured intermittently in the United States between July and December 1991, playing primarily at hard rock and punk clubs, including CBGB and the Whisky A Go Go, where they opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. In a write-up by the Los Angeles Times on the band's final show of the tour, it was noted that Love smashed the headstock of her Rickenbacker guitar onstage.
In mid-1991, the band began to get the attention of the major labels. The first to court them was Maverick — a Warner subsidiary founded by Madonna and music executive Freddy DeMann. Love, however, was uninterested: "[They] would have me riding on elephants. They don't know what I am. For them, I'm a visual, period." She was also uneasy about sharing the spotlight on a label so heavily associated with one of the industry's most iconic female performers. In a 1992 interview with Vanity Fair, Love described Madonna's interest as "kind of like Dracula's interest in his latest victim."
1992 – 1999: Mainstream success
1992 – 1995: Live Through This
Love and Erlandson began writing new material for a second Hole album in 1992, in the midst of Love's pregnancy with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Love's desire to take the band in a more melodic and controlled rock format led bassist Emery to leave the band, and drummer Caroline Rue followed. In an advertisement to find a new bass player, Love wrote: "[I want] someone who can play ok, and stand in front of 30,000 people, take off her shirt and have 'fuck you' written on her tits. If you're not afraid of me and you're not afraid to fucking say it, send a letter. No more pussies, no more fake girls, I want a whore from hell." In April 1992, drummer Patty Schemel was recruited after an audition in Los Angeles, but the band spent the remainder of the year without a bassist; Love, Schemel, and Erlandson began to write material together in the interim.
Hole signed to Geffen's subsidiary DGC label with an eight-album contract in late 1992. In the spring of 1993, the band released their single "Beautiful Son", which was recorded in Seattle with producer Jack Endino as a fill-in bass player; Love also played bass on the single's b-side "20 Years In the Dakota", as well as on their contribution to the 1993 Germs tribute album A Small Circle of Friends. In the spring of 1993, Love and Erlandson recruited Janitor Joe bassist Kristen Pfaff, and the band toured the United Kingdom in the summer of that year (including the Phoenix Festival on July 16), mainly performing material from their upcoming major label debut, Live Through This, which they recorded at Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia in October 1993.
Live Through This was released on April 12, 1994, one week after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his Seattle home. In the wake of Love's family tragedy, Live Through This was a critical success. It spawned several popular singles, including "Doll Parts", "Violet", and "Miss World", going multi-platinum and being hailed "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine. NME called the album "a personal but secretive thrash-pop opera of urban nihilism and passionate dumb thinks," and Rolling Stone said the album "may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape."
Despite the critical praise for Live Through This, rumors circulated insinuating that Cobain had actually written the majority of the album, though the band vehemently denies this. The band's drummer Patty Schemel, who had been friends with Cobain since the late 1980s, said: "There's that myth that Kurt [Cobain] wrote all our songs— it's not true. Courtney and Eric wrote Live Through This." The band did, however, state that Love convinced Cobain to provide backing vocals on "Asking for It" and "Softer, Softest" while visiting the studio, and music producers and engineers present during the recording sessions noted that Cobain seemed "completely unfamiliar" with the songs. According to Rolling Stone rock journalist Gavin Edwards, Love and Cobain had written songs together in the past, but opted to not release them because it was "a bit too redolent of John and Yoko."
In 1994, bassist Kristen Pfaff went into a drug treatment facility to treat her heroin addiction. Pfaff contemplated leaving the band for health reasons. In June 1994, she was found dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of her Seattle home, 2 months after the death of Cobain. The band put their impending tour on hold, pulling out of the upcoming Lollapalooza festival. Pfaff's life is, according to Pfaff's brother, the subject of an upcoming book by British authors Sara Hawys Roberts and Guy Mankowski, who he's collaborating with.
Recruiting bassist Melissa Auf der Maur over the summer, they commenced their world tour on August 26 at the Reading Festival in England, giving a performance that John Peel described as "teetering on the edge of chaos." The band embarked on a worldwide tour throughout late 1994 and for the duration of 1995, with appearances at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Saturday Night Live, the Big Day Out festival, MTV Unplugged, the 1995 Reading Festival, Lollapalooza 1995, and at the MTV Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for the "Doll Parts" music video.
Love's reckless stage presence during the tour became a media spectacle, drawing press from MTV and other outlets due to her unpredictable performances. While touring with Sonic Youth, Love got into a physical fight with Kathleen Hanna backstage at a 1995 Lollapalooza festival and punched her in the face. In an August 1995 band interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Patty Schemel formally came out as a lesbian, saying: "It's important. I'm not out there with that fucking pink flag or anything, but it's good for other people who live somewhere else in some small town who feel freaky about being gay to know that there's other people who are and that it's okay." In a retrospective interview, Schemel said:
Toward the end of the tour, the band released their first EP, titled Ask for It, in September 1995; it featured 1991 Peel session recordings, as well as covers of songs by Wipers and The Velvet Underground. The band performed its last show of the year on September 3, 1995 at the Molson Polar Beach Party in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. The concert was a promotional event for the Molson Brewery, and also featured performances by Metallica, Veruca Salt, and Moist.
1996 – 1999: Celebrity Skin
In 1996, the band recorded and released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996) soundtrack, the band's first studio song to feature Melissa Auf der Maur on bass, and produced by Ric Ocasek. Hole released two retrospective albums during this time: firstly, their second EP, titled The First Session (1997), which consisted of a complete version of the band's first recording session at Rudy's Rising Star in Los Angeles in March 1990, some of which had been bootlegged widely years prior. It featured the group's first ever recorded track, "Turpentine", which had previously been unreleased to the public. The same year, the band released their first compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), featuring early singles, b-sides and recent live tracks.
In 1997, the band entered Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles after attempts to write new material in Miami, New Orleans, London, and New York. Recorded over a ten-month period, Hole's third studio album, Celebrity Skin (1998), adopted a complete new sound for the band, incorporating elements of power pop, and had Love drawing influences from Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine. According to Erlandson, Love was more focused on song-writing and singing than playing guitar on the record; Love stated that her aim for the album was to "deconstruct the California sound" in the L.A. tradition of bands like The Doors, The Beach Boys and The Byrds. In addition to Hole, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan entered the studio and helped perfect five of the album's twelve songs. Love, who felt she was in a creative slump, likened Corgan's presence in the studio to "a math teacher who wouldn't give you the answers but was making you solve the problems yourself."
Upon the album's release, Corgan told CNN that he should have "been given credit [for writing the entire album]." Erlandson responded to Corgan's statements in a Rolling Stone interview, commenting: "We were working on all the stuff that Courtney and I had already written. Billy really facilitated things, in a way ... I would bring in the music, Courtney would start coming up with lyrics right away, and [Billy] would help map it all out." Erlandson also stated: "Courtney writes all her own lyrics. Nobody else is writing those lyrics and nobody ever has." One journalist took note of the controversy when reviewing the album, stating: "Back in 1994, the acclaim for Live Through This was undercut by whispers that Love's late husband wrote the album. Combine those conspiracy theories with the unfounded but persistent rumor that Cobain was actually murdered, and it is no surprise that, in the song "Celebrity Skin", Love calls herself a walking study in demonology."
Although Schemel is listed as drummer in the liner notes of the record, her drumming does not actually appear on the record; she was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo, under pressure from producer Michael Beinhorn. After the replacement, Schemel quit the band. Though Love and Erlandson had authorized Schemel's replacement, both expressed regret in retrospect, and Love stated in 2011 that Beinhorn was notorious for replacing drummers on records, and referred to him as "a Nazi". After Schemel's departure, the band hired drummer Samantha Maloney for their upcoming tours and music videos.
Celebrity Skin was a critical success with strong sales and successful singles, including the title track, "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", and "Awful". The album received largely positive reviews, with praise from music periodicals such as Rolling Stone, NME, and Blender, as well as a four-star review from the Los Angeles Times, calling it a "wild emotional ride" sure to be "one of the most dissected and debated collections of the year." The album peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200, and garnered the band its first and only number 1 single, "Celebrity Skin", which topped the Modern Rock Tracks. "Malibu", released December 29, 1998, was the album's second single; it charted at number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks.
1999 – 2002: Final tour and disbandment
In the winter of 1998–99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band.
The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 17, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999.
In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. In April 2002, Love called The Howard Stern Show and said she had written nine songs with songwriter Linda Perry, but less than a month later Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004, featuring several of the songs written with Perry. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album.
2009 – 2013: Reformation and name dispute
On June 17, 2009, seven years after Hole's disbandment, NME reported that Love was re-forming the band with guitarist Micko Larkin for an upcoming album, on which Melissa Auf der Maur would be providing backup vocals. Days later, Melissa Auf der Maur stated in an interview that she was unaware of any reunion, but said Love had asked her to contribute harmonies to an upcoming album. In response, Eric Erlandson stated in an interview with Spin magazine that a reunion could not take place without his involvement, citing that he and Love "have a contract."
Hole launched a new website and various social media pages on January 1, 2010, and performed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in February. On February 17, 2010 they played a full set at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, with support from Little Fish. On March 16, the first Hole single in ten years was released, titled "Skinny Little Bitch"; it peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Rock Chart, and at No. 21 on the Alternative Singles chart. The track also received airplay on Active rock and alternative radio.
Nobody's Daughter was released on April 26, 2010 worldwide on Mercury Records, and was received moderately well by music critics. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, but noted "[while Love] was an absolute monster vocalist in the nineties, the greatest era ever for rock singers ... She doesn't have that power in her lungs anymore – barely a trace. But at least she remembers, and that means something in itself." The magazine also referred to the album as "not a true success", but a "noble effort". Love's voice, which had become noticeably raspier, was compared to the likes of Bob Dylan. NME gave the album a 6/10 rating, and Robert Christgau rated it an "A-", saying, "Thing is, I can use some new punk rage in my life, and unless you're a fan of Goldman Sachs and BP Petroleum, so can you. What's more, better it come from a 45-year-old woman who knows how to throw her weight around than from the zitty newbies and tattooed road dogs who churn most of it out these days. I know—for her, BP Petroleum is just something else to pretend about. But the emotion fueling her pretense is cathartic nevertheless." In support of the release, Hole toured extensively between 2010 and 2012 throughout North America and Europe, as well as performing in Russia and Brazil.
On March 28, 2011, Love, Erlandson, Patty Schemel and Auf der Maur appeared at the New York screening of Schemel's documentary Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel at the Museum of Modern Art. The appearance was the first time in thirteen years that all four members appeared together in public. Schemel had expressed a desire to record with Love, Erlandson and Auf der Maur stating "nothing has been discussed, but I have a feeling." After the screening, the four took part in a Q&A session where Love stated: "For me, as much as I love playing with Patty – and I would play with her in five seconds again, and everyone onstage – if it's not moving forward, I don't wanna do it. That's just my thing. There's rumblings; there's always bloody rumblings. But if it's not miserable and it's going forward and I'm happy with it ... that's all I have to say about that question."
In May 2011, a music video for "Samantha" was shot in Istanbul, although it remained officially unreleased. In September 2011, Scott Lipps joined the band, replacing drummer Stu Fisher. In April 2012, Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur and Schemel reunited at the Public Assembly in New York for a two-song set, including "Miss World" and the Wipers' "Over the Edge," at an after-party for the Hit So Hard documentary. The performance marked the first time the four members performed together since 1998 after Schemel's departure and the 2002 breakup of the band.
On December 29, 2012, Love performed a solo acoustic set in New York City, and in January 2013, performed at the Sundance Film Festival under her own name. She booked further performances across North America as a solo act, with Larkin, bassist Shawn Dailey, and Lipps as her backing band.
2014 – 2016: Second disbandment
On December 28, 2013, Love posted two photos of herself with Erlandson on Facebook and Twitter, with a caption reading: "And this just happened ... 2014 going to be a very interesting year." Love also tagged Melissa Auf der Maur as well as Hole's former manager, Peter Mensch, in the post, alluding to a reconciliation with Erlandson and possible reunion in 2014.
On April 2, 2014, Rolling Stone reported that the Celebrity Skin line-up of the band had reunited (with Patty Schemel in lieu of Samantha Maloney). Rolling Stone erroneously reported Love's upcoming solo single, "Wedding Day" to be a product of this reunion. Shortly after, Love curtailed her statement, saying: "We may have made out but there is no talk of marriage. It's very frail, nothing might happen, and now the band are all flipping out on me." On May 1, in an interview with Pitchfork, Love discussed the possibility of a reunion, and also stated it had been "a mistake" releasing Nobody's Daughter as a Hole record in 2010. "Eric was right—I kind of cheapened the name, even though I'm legally allowed to use it. I should save "Hole" for the lineup everybody wants to see and had the balls to put Nobody's Daughter under my own name." Love further discussed the possibility of reuniting the band, saying:
No one's been dormant. Patty teaches drumming and drums in three indie bands. Melissa has her metal-nerd thing going on—her dream is to play Castle Donington with Dokken. Eric hasn't flipped—I jammed with him, he's still doing his Thurston [Moore]-crazy tunings, still corresponding with Kevin Shields. We all get along great. There are bands who reunite and hate each others' guts.
2019 – present: Possible reformation and attempted reunions
In October 2019, Hole rehearsed at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Los Angeles. Nothing transpired after the event, since Love had relocated to the United Kingdom afterwards. In March 2020, Love and Auf Der Maur planned a performance at the "Bans Off My Body" event, which was eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artistry
Composition
Initially, Hole drew inspiration from no wave and experimental bands, which is evident in their earliest recordings, specifically "Retard Girl", but frontwoman Love also drew from a variety of influences. Love cited post-punk group Echo & the Bunnymen and classic rock such as Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The band's first album, Pretty on the Inside, was heavily influenced by noise and punk rock, using discordant melodies, distortion, and feedback, with Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screams. Love described the band's earliest songwriting as being based on "really crazy Sonic Youth tunings." Nonetheless, Love claimed to have aimed for a pop sound early on: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band," she told Flipside magazine in 1991. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band the Germs. In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."
The band's second album Live Through This, captured a less abrasive sound, while maintaining the group's original punk roots. "I want this record to be shocking to the people who don't think we have a soft edge, and at the same time, [to know] that we haven't lost our very, very hard edge," Love told VH1 in 1994. The group's third album, Celebrity Skin, incorporated power pop into their hard rock sound, and was heavily inspired by California bands; Love was also influenced by Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine while writing the album. The group's 2010 release, Nobody's Daughter, featured a more folk rock-oriented sound, utilizing acoustic guitar and softer melodies.
The group's chord progressions by and large drew on elements of punk music, which Love described as "grungey", although not necessarily grunge. Critics described their song style as "deceptively wispy and strummy," combined with "gunshot guitar choruses." Although the group's sound changed over the course of their career, the dynamic between beauty and ugliness has often been noted, particularly due to the layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated arrangements.
Lyrical content
In a 1991 interview, Love stated that lyrics were "the most important" element of songwriting for her. Her lyrics explored a variety of themes throughout Hole's career, including body image, rape, child abuse, addiction, celebrity, suicide, elitism, and inferiority complex; all of which were addressed mainly from a female, and often feminist standpoint. This underlying feminism in Love's lyrics often led the public and critics to mistakenly associate her with the riot grrrl movement, of which Love was highly critical.
In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place [beautiful imagery] next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on Live Through This as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from Pretty on the Inside were excisions from her journals.
Throughout Hole's career, Love's lyrics were often influenced by literature: The title of the band's second album Live Through This, for example (as well as lyrics from the track "Asking for It") is directly drawn from Gone With the Wind; and the group's single "Celebrity Skin" (the title track to their 1998 album), contains quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Dante Rossetti's poem A Superscription. Love had had a minor background in literature, having briefly studied English literature in her early twenties.
Performances
Throughout the duration of the 1990s, the band received widespread media coverage due to Love's often rambunctious and unpredictable behavior onstage. The band often destroyed equipment and guitars at the end of concerts, and Love would ramble between songs, bring fans onstage, and stage dive, sometimes returning with her clothes torn off of her or sustaining injuries. In a 1995 New York Magazine article, journalist John Homans addressed Love's frequent stage diving during Hole's concerts:
The most shocking, frightening, and fascinating image in rock in the last few years is Courtney Love's stage dive ... When some male performers do it, it looks like muscular, frat-boy fun, controlled aggression ... For obvious reasons, the practice was strictly no-girls-allowed, but Love, typically, decided that she wanted to do it, too. Groped, ravaged, she compared the experience to being raped, wrote a song about it, and now does it just about every show.
Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and [the rest of the band] would just kind of stand there." The majority of Love's chaotic behavior onstage was a result of heavy drug use at the time, which she admitted: "I was completely high on dope; I cannot remember much about it." She later criticized her behavior during that time, saying: "I [saw] pictures of how I looked. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed. There's death and there's disease and there's misery and there's giving up your soul ... The human spirit mixed with certain powders is not the person, it's [a] demonic presence."
Love's stage attire also garnered notoriety, influenced in part by Carroll Baker's wardrobe in the film Baby Doll (1956). The style was later dubbed "kinderwhore" by the media, and consisted of babydoll dresses, slips and nightgowns, and smeared makeup. Kurt Loder likened her onstage attire to a "debauched ragdoll", and John Peel noted in his review of the band's 1994 Reading Festival performance, that "[Love], swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, ... would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." Rolling Stone referred to the style as "a slightly more politically charged version of grunge; apathy turned into ruinous angst, which soon became high fashion's favorite pose."
The band's set lists for live shows were often loose, featuring improvisational jams and rough performances of unreleased songs. By 1998, their live performances had become less aggressive and more restrained, although Love continued to bring fans onstage, and would often go into the crowd while singing.
Legacy
Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010. In spite of Love's often polarizing reputation in the media, Hole received consistent critical praise for their output, and was often noted for the predominant feminist commentary found in Love's lyrics, which scholars have credited as "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness". Love's subversive onstage persona and public image coincided with the band's songs, which expressed "pain, sorrow, and anger, but [an] underlying message of survival, particularly survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances." Music journalist Maria Raha expressed a similar sentiment in regard to the band's significance to third-wave feminism, stating, "Whether you love Courtney [Love] or hate her, Hole was the highest-profile female-fronted band of the '90s to openly and directly sing about feminism."
While Rolling Stone compared the effect of Love's marriage to Cobain on the band to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they noted that "Love's confrontational stage presence, as well as her gut-wrenching vocals and powerful punk-pop songcraft, made her an alternative-rock star in her own right." Author Nick Wise made a similar comparison in discussion of the band's public image, stating, "Not since Yoko Ono's marriage to John Lennon has a woman's personal life and exploits within the rock arena been so analyzed and dissected." The band has been cited as a major influence on several contemporary artists, including indie singer-songwriter Scout Niblett, Brody Dalle (of The Distillers and Spinnerette), Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, Tove Lo, Tegan and Sara, and the British rock band Nine Black Alps. The band ranked at number 77 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists list.
Materials loss
In 2008 a fire swept through Universal Studios Hollywood destroying buildings belonging to Universal Music Group. It was confirmed, in 2019, that the entire Hole back catalogue, along with hundreds of other artists' music, was completely lost, meaning reissues and remasters are now unlikely. Courtney Love and the band were one of the artists suing UMG for the loss; however, on August 16, 2019, the band was removed from that lawsuit as it was amended "based on UMG's representations that none of Hole's original masters were destroyed (subject to confirmation)".
Members
Timeline
Discography
Pretty on the Inside (1991)
Live Through This (1994)
Celebrity Skin (1998)
Nobody's Daughter (2010)
Accolades
{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Nominated work(s)
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|Grammy Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Rock Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|rowspan=3 style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Rock Song
| rowspan=2|"Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
| 2000
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|MTV Video Music Awards
| 1995
| Best Alternative Video
| "Doll Parts"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| 1999
| Best Cinematography
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|NME Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Band
| Hole
|
|rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|-
| Best Single
| "Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Spin Readers' Poll Awards
| 1994
| Album of the Year
| Live Through This
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
References
Sources
External links
Hole at Billboard
1989 establishments in California
2002 disestablishments in California
2009 establishments in California
2012 disestablishments in California
Alternative rock groups from California
American noise rock music groups
Punk rock groups from California
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups disestablished in 2002
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Sympathy for the Record Industry artists
Caroline Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Sub Pop artists
Mercury Records artists
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
Feminist musicians
Third-wave feminism
Grunge musical groups
Courtney Love
Articles which contain graphical timelines
20th-century American guitarists
City Slang artists
Female-fronted musical groups | true | [
"This is a list of the 1970 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates.\n\nThe tournament was held in early November at Tucson Country Club in Tucson, Arizona for the first time. There were nine 54-hole district tournaments to determine the final field of 60 players for the final 72-hole qualifying tournament. 18 players earned their tour cards with Bob Barbarossa being medalist. There was a five-for-one playoff for the last card.\n\nThis was the first year that Greg Powers attempted to qualify for the PGA Tour at PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament. He was not successful. Australian player David Graham also attempted to qualify. However, he was not successful either.\n\nSources:\n\nReferences\n\nPGA Tour Qualifying School\nGolf in Arizona\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates",
"An Evening with Adele was the debut concert tour by English singer-songwriter Adele, in support of her debut studio album, 19. The tour was unusual in that it included few dates in the United Kingdom, Adele's home country and the territory where 19 was the most successful. Instead, the tour focused heavily on North America. Adele and the tour gained some notoriety when she cancelled tour dates in 2008 in order to spend time with her then-boyfriend, an incident she later expressed regret over. One of the last performances on the tour took place at the historic Hollywood Bowl. Etta James was supposed to appear at the performance but cancelled at the last-minute due to illness and was replaced by Chaka Khan. The last performance of the tour was at the North Sea Jazz Festival.\n\nAn official tour book containing exclusive pictures and behind-the-scene information of the tour is available for purchase on Adele's official site.\n\nOpening acts\nThe Script (North America, early 2009)\nJames Morrison (North America, January 2009)\nSam Sparro (United Kingdom, mid-2008)\nJenny Lindfors (Ireland, mid-2008)\n\nSetlist\n\nEncore\n\nSource:\n\nTour dates\n\nFestivals and other miscellaneous performances\nThis concert was a part of the 'Bonnaroo Music Festival'\nThis concert was a part of the 'Montreux Jazz Festival'\nThis concert was a part of the 'Summer Series'\nThis concert was a part of the 'Little Noise Sessions'\nThis concert was a part of the 'iTunes Festival'\nThis concert was a part of the 'North Sea Jazz Festival'\n\nBox office score data\n\nBroadcasts and recordings\nThe concert at The Roundhouse (a part of the iTunes Festival) was recorded and released as iTunes Live from SoHo.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAdele's Official Website\nAdele's gigography on Songkick\nAdele's gigography on Last.FM\n\n2008 concert tours\n2009 concert tours\nAdele concert tours"
]
|
[
"Hole (band)",
"1999-2002: Final tour and disbandment",
"what was the final tour?",
"In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson,",
"why did they disband after this tour?",
"In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins.",
"was this last tour successful?",
"Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon,"
]
| C_40b826cb017c484cbcaddd848b55bd96_0 | was there any other interesting facts about this disbandment? | 4 | Was there any other interesting facts about the band Hole's disbandment other than the band's final tour, why the band disbanded, and if their last tour was successful? | Hole (band) | In the winter of 1998-99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band. The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 18, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999. In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website in 2002. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album. CANNOTANSWER | After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: | Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Influenced by Los Angeles' punk rock scene, the band's debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), was produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and attracted critical interest from British and American alternative press. Their second album, Live Through This, released 1994 by DGC Records, which featured less aggressive melodies and more restrained lyrical content, was widely acclaimed and reached platinum status within a year of its release. Their third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), marked a notable departure from their earlier punk influences, boasting a more commercially viable sound; the album sold around 2 million copies worldwide, and earned them significant critical acclaim.
They disbanded in 2002, and the members individually pursued other projects. Eight years later in 2010, Hole was reformed by Love with new members, despite Erlandson's claim that the reformation breached a mutual contract he had with her. The reformed band released the album Nobody's Daughter (2010), which had originally been conceived as Love's second solo album. In 2013, Love retired the Hole name, releasing new material and touring as a solo artist.
Hole received several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. They were also commercially successful, selling over three million records in the United States alone, and had a far-reaching influence on contemporary female artists. Music and feminist scholars have also recognized the band as the most high-profile musical group of the 1990s to discuss gender issues in their songs, due to Love's aggressive and violent lyrical content, which often addressed themes of body image, abuse, and sexual exploitation.
Background
Hole formed after Eric Erlandson responded to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in The Recycler in the summer of 1989. The advertisement simply read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." "She called me up and talked my ear off," said Erlandson. "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought "Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?" She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like "I know you're the right one", and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet." In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him" and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist." In his 2012 book, Letters to Kurt, Erlandson revealed that he and Love had a sexual relationship during their first year together in the band, which Love also confirmed.
Love had been living a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in numerous music scenes and living in various cities along the West Coast. After unsuccessful attempts at forming bands in San Francisco (where she was briefly a member of Faith No More) and Portland, Love relocated to Los Angeles, where she found work as an actress in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell). Erlandson, a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, was working as a royalties manager for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.
Love had originally wanted to name the band Sweet Baby Crystal Powered by God, but opted for the name Hole instead. During an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, Love claimed the name for the band was partly inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea that read: "There is a hole that pierces right through me." She also cited a conversation with her mother as the primary inspiration for the band's name, in which her mother told her that she couldn't live her life "with a hole running through her." Love also acknowledged the "obvious" genital reference in the band's name, alluding to the vagina.
Career
1989 – 1991: Early work and indie success
In the months preceding the band's full formation, Love and Erlandson would write and record in the evenings at a rehearsal space in Hollywood, loaned to them by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; during the day, Love worked as a stripper to support the band and purchase amplifiers and their backline for live shows. Hole's first official rehearsal took place at Fortress Studios in Hollywood with Love, Erlandson and Lisa Roberts on bass. According to Erlandson, "these two girls show up dressed completely crazy, we set up and they said, "okay, just start playing something." I started playing and they started screaming at the top of their lungs for two or three hours. Crazy lyrics and screaming. I said to myself, "most people would just run away from this really fast. But I heard something in Courtney's voice and lyrics." Initially, the band had no percussion until Love met drummer Caroline Rue, and later recruited a third guitarist, Mike Geisbrecht. Hole's first show took place at Raji's, a small bar in Hollywood, in September 1989. By early 1990, Geisbrecht and Roberts had both left the band, which led to the recruitment of bassist Jill Emery.
Hole released their no wave-influenced debut single "Retard Girl" in April 1990, and followed it with "Dicknail" in 1991, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, respectively. According to disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, Love would often approach him at a Denny's on Sunset Blvd. where he went for coffee in the mornings, and convinced him to give "Retard Girl" airtime on his station KROQ-FM.
In 1991, the band signed onto Caroline Records to release their debut album, and Love sought Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to produce the record. She sent a letter, a Hello Kitty barrette, and copies of the band's early singles to her, mentioning that the band greatly admired Gordon's work and appreciated "... the production of the SST record" (either referring to Sonic Youth's album Sister or EVOL). Gordon, impressed by the band's singles, agreed to produce the album, with assistance from Gumball's Don Fleming. The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in September 1991 to positive reception from underground critics, branded "loud, ugly and deliberately shocking," and earned a spot on Spins "20 Best Albums of the Year" list. It was also voted album of the year by New York's Village Voice and peaked at number 59 on the UK albums chart. The album spawned one single, "Teenage Whore", which entered the UK Indie Chart at number one, as well as the band's debut music video for the song "Garbadge Man".
Musically and lyrically, Pretty on the Inside was abrasive and drew on elements of punk rock and sludge metal, characterized by overt noise and feedback, chaotic guitar riffs, contrasting tempos, graphic lyrics, and a variation of Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screaming. In later years, Love referred to the album as "unlistenable", despite its critical accolades and eventual cult following. The band embarked on a European tour in the fall of 1991 supporting Mudhoney. They also toured intermittently in the United States between July and December 1991, playing primarily at hard rock and punk clubs, including CBGB and the Whisky A Go Go, where they opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. In a write-up by the Los Angeles Times on the band's final show of the tour, it was noted that Love smashed the headstock of her Rickenbacker guitar onstage.
In mid-1991, the band began to get the attention of the major labels. The first to court them was Maverick — a Warner subsidiary founded by Madonna and music executive Freddy DeMann. Love, however, was uninterested: "[They] would have me riding on elephants. They don't know what I am. For them, I'm a visual, period." She was also uneasy about sharing the spotlight on a label so heavily associated with one of the industry's most iconic female performers. In a 1992 interview with Vanity Fair, Love described Madonna's interest as "kind of like Dracula's interest in his latest victim."
1992 – 1999: Mainstream success
1992 – 1995: Live Through This
Love and Erlandson began writing new material for a second Hole album in 1992, in the midst of Love's pregnancy with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Love's desire to take the band in a more melodic and controlled rock format led bassist Emery to leave the band, and drummer Caroline Rue followed. In an advertisement to find a new bass player, Love wrote: "[I want] someone who can play ok, and stand in front of 30,000 people, take off her shirt and have 'fuck you' written on her tits. If you're not afraid of me and you're not afraid to fucking say it, send a letter. No more pussies, no more fake girls, I want a whore from hell." In April 1992, drummer Patty Schemel was recruited after an audition in Los Angeles, but the band spent the remainder of the year without a bassist; Love, Schemel, and Erlandson began to write material together in the interim.
Hole signed to Geffen's subsidiary DGC label with an eight-album contract in late 1992. In the spring of 1993, the band released their single "Beautiful Son", which was recorded in Seattle with producer Jack Endino as a fill-in bass player; Love also played bass on the single's b-side "20 Years In the Dakota", as well as on their contribution to the 1993 Germs tribute album A Small Circle of Friends. In the spring of 1993, Love and Erlandson recruited Janitor Joe bassist Kristen Pfaff, and the band toured the United Kingdom in the summer of that year (including the Phoenix Festival on July 16), mainly performing material from their upcoming major label debut, Live Through This, which they recorded at Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia in October 1993.
Live Through This was released on April 12, 1994, one week after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his Seattle home. In the wake of Love's family tragedy, Live Through This was a critical success. It spawned several popular singles, including "Doll Parts", "Violet", and "Miss World", going multi-platinum and being hailed "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine. NME called the album "a personal but secretive thrash-pop opera of urban nihilism and passionate dumb thinks," and Rolling Stone said the album "may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape."
Despite the critical praise for Live Through This, rumors circulated insinuating that Cobain had actually written the majority of the album, though the band vehemently denies this. The band's drummer Patty Schemel, who had been friends with Cobain since the late 1980s, said: "There's that myth that Kurt [Cobain] wrote all our songs— it's not true. Courtney and Eric wrote Live Through This." The band did, however, state that Love convinced Cobain to provide backing vocals on "Asking for It" and "Softer, Softest" while visiting the studio, and music producers and engineers present during the recording sessions noted that Cobain seemed "completely unfamiliar" with the songs. According to Rolling Stone rock journalist Gavin Edwards, Love and Cobain had written songs together in the past, but opted to not release them because it was "a bit too redolent of John and Yoko."
In 1994, bassist Kristen Pfaff went into a drug treatment facility to treat her heroin addiction. Pfaff contemplated leaving the band for health reasons. In June 1994, she was found dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of her Seattle home, 2 months after the death of Cobain. The band put their impending tour on hold, pulling out of the upcoming Lollapalooza festival. Pfaff's life is, according to Pfaff's brother, the subject of an upcoming book by British authors Sara Hawys Roberts and Guy Mankowski, who he's collaborating with.
Recruiting bassist Melissa Auf der Maur over the summer, they commenced their world tour on August 26 at the Reading Festival in England, giving a performance that John Peel described as "teetering on the edge of chaos." The band embarked on a worldwide tour throughout late 1994 and for the duration of 1995, with appearances at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Saturday Night Live, the Big Day Out festival, MTV Unplugged, the 1995 Reading Festival, Lollapalooza 1995, and at the MTV Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for the "Doll Parts" music video.
Love's reckless stage presence during the tour became a media spectacle, drawing press from MTV and other outlets due to her unpredictable performances. While touring with Sonic Youth, Love got into a physical fight with Kathleen Hanna backstage at a 1995 Lollapalooza festival and punched her in the face. In an August 1995 band interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Patty Schemel formally came out as a lesbian, saying: "It's important. I'm not out there with that fucking pink flag or anything, but it's good for other people who live somewhere else in some small town who feel freaky about being gay to know that there's other people who are and that it's okay." In a retrospective interview, Schemel said:
Toward the end of the tour, the band released their first EP, titled Ask for It, in September 1995; it featured 1991 Peel session recordings, as well as covers of songs by Wipers and The Velvet Underground. The band performed its last show of the year on September 3, 1995 at the Molson Polar Beach Party in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. The concert was a promotional event for the Molson Brewery, and also featured performances by Metallica, Veruca Salt, and Moist.
1996 – 1999: Celebrity Skin
In 1996, the band recorded and released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996) soundtrack, the band's first studio song to feature Melissa Auf der Maur on bass, and produced by Ric Ocasek. Hole released two retrospective albums during this time: firstly, their second EP, titled The First Session (1997), which consisted of a complete version of the band's first recording session at Rudy's Rising Star in Los Angeles in March 1990, some of which had been bootlegged widely years prior. It featured the group's first ever recorded track, "Turpentine", which had previously been unreleased to the public. The same year, the band released their first compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), featuring early singles, b-sides and recent live tracks.
In 1997, the band entered Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles after attempts to write new material in Miami, New Orleans, London, and New York. Recorded over a ten-month period, Hole's third studio album, Celebrity Skin (1998), adopted a complete new sound for the band, incorporating elements of power pop, and had Love drawing influences from Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine. According to Erlandson, Love was more focused on song-writing and singing than playing guitar on the record; Love stated that her aim for the album was to "deconstruct the California sound" in the L.A. tradition of bands like The Doors, The Beach Boys and The Byrds. In addition to Hole, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan entered the studio and helped perfect five of the album's twelve songs. Love, who felt she was in a creative slump, likened Corgan's presence in the studio to "a math teacher who wouldn't give you the answers but was making you solve the problems yourself."
Upon the album's release, Corgan told CNN that he should have "been given credit [for writing the entire album]." Erlandson responded to Corgan's statements in a Rolling Stone interview, commenting: "We were working on all the stuff that Courtney and I had already written. Billy really facilitated things, in a way ... I would bring in the music, Courtney would start coming up with lyrics right away, and [Billy] would help map it all out." Erlandson also stated: "Courtney writes all her own lyrics. Nobody else is writing those lyrics and nobody ever has." One journalist took note of the controversy when reviewing the album, stating: "Back in 1994, the acclaim for Live Through This was undercut by whispers that Love's late husband wrote the album. Combine those conspiracy theories with the unfounded but persistent rumor that Cobain was actually murdered, and it is no surprise that, in the song "Celebrity Skin", Love calls herself a walking study in demonology."
Although Schemel is listed as drummer in the liner notes of the record, her drumming does not actually appear on the record; she was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo, under pressure from producer Michael Beinhorn. After the replacement, Schemel quit the band. Though Love and Erlandson had authorized Schemel's replacement, both expressed regret in retrospect, and Love stated in 2011 that Beinhorn was notorious for replacing drummers on records, and referred to him as "a Nazi". After Schemel's departure, the band hired drummer Samantha Maloney for their upcoming tours and music videos.
Celebrity Skin was a critical success with strong sales and successful singles, including the title track, "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", and "Awful". The album received largely positive reviews, with praise from music periodicals such as Rolling Stone, NME, and Blender, as well as a four-star review from the Los Angeles Times, calling it a "wild emotional ride" sure to be "one of the most dissected and debated collections of the year." The album peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200, and garnered the band its first and only number 1 single, "Celebrity Skin", which topped the Modern Rock Tracks. "Malibu", released December 29, 1998, was the album's second single; it charted at number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks.
1999 – 2002: Final tour and disbandment
In the winter of 1998–99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, joining Marilyn Manson, who was promoting his album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, and the 50/50 financial arrangement between the groups, with Hole's production costs being disproportionately less than Manson's. Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview. Hole officially announced that they would be dropping out of the tour after a poorly received concert at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, which ended with Manson fans booing the band.
The band continued to book shows and headline festivals after dropping off Manson's tour, and according to Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performance. On June 17, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year-old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999.
In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions. In April 2002, Love called The Howard Stern Show and said she had written nine songs with songwriter Linda Perry, but less than a month later Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website. After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own: Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist Vincent Gallo. Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart, in 2004, featuring several of the songs written with Perry. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which included Erlandson performing lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released in March 2010. Hole's body of work from its inception to its first disbandment includes thirteen singles, three LPs, three EPs, and one compilation album.
2009 – 2013: Reformation and name dispute
On June 17, 2009, seven years after Hole's disbandment, NME reported that Love was re-forming the band with guitarist Micko Larkin for an upcoming album, on which Melissa Auf der Maur would be providing backup vocals. Days later, Melissa Auf der Maur stated in an interview that she was unaware of any reunion, but said Love had asked her to contribute harmonies to an upcoming album. In response, Eric Erlandson stated in an interview with Spin magazine that a reunion could not take place without his involvement, citing that he and Love "have a contract."
Hole launched a new website and various social media pages on January 1, 2010, and performed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in February. On February 17, 2010 they played a full set at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, with support from Little Fish. On March 16, the first Hole single in ten years was released, titled "Skinny Little Bitch"; it peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Rock Chart, and at No. 21 on the Alternative Singles chart. The track also received airplay on Active rock and alternative radio.
Nobody's Daughter was released on April 26, 2010 worldwide on Mercury Records, and was received moderately well by music critics. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, but noted "[while Love] was an absolute monster vocalist in the nineties, the greatest era ever for rock singers ... She doesn't have that power in her lungs anymore – barely a trace. But at least she remembers, and that means something in itself." The magazine also referred to the album as "not a true success", but a "noble effort". Love's voice, which had become noticeably raspier, was compared to the likes of Bob Dylan. NME gave the album a 6/10 rating, and Robert Christgau rated it an "A-", saying, "Thing is, I can use some new punk rage in my life, and unless you're a fan of Goldman Sachs and BP Petroleum, so can you. What's more, better it come from a 45-year-old woman who knows how to throw her weight around than from the zitty newbies and tattooed road dogs who churn most of it out these days. I know—for her, BP Petroleum is just something else to pretend about. But the emotion fueling her pretense is cathartic nevertheless." In support of the release, Hole toured extensively between 2010 and 2012 throughout North America and Europe, as well as performing in Russia and Brazil.
On March 28, 2011, Love, Erlandson, Patty Schemel and Auf der Maur appeared at the New York screening of Schemel's documentary Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel at the Museum of Modern Art. The appearance was the first time in thirteen years that all four members appeared together in public. Schemel had expressed a desire to record with Love, Erlandson and Auf der Maur stating "nothing has been discussed, but I have a feeling." After the screening, the four took part in a Q&A session where Love stated: "For me, as much as I love playing with Patty – and I would play with her in five seconds again, and everyone onstage – if it's not moving forward, I don't wanna do it. That's just my thing. There's rumblings; there's always bloody rumblings. But if it's not miserable and it's going forward and I'm happy with it ... that's all I have to say about that question."
In May 2011, a music video for "Samantha" was shot in Istanbul, although it remained officially unreleased. In September 2011, Scott Lipps joined the band, replacing drummer Stu Fisher. In April 2012, Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur and Schemel reunited at the Public Assembly in New York for a two-song set, including "Miss World" and the Wipers' "Over the Edge," at an after-party for the Hit So Hard documentary. The performance marked the first time the four members performed together since 1998 after Schemel's departure and the 2002 breakup of the band.
On December 29, 2012, Love performed a solo acoustic set in New York City, and in January 2013, performed at the Sundance Film Festival under her own name. She booked further performances across North America as a solo act, with Larkin, bassist Shawn Dailey, and Lipps as her backing band.
2014 – 2016: Second disbandment
On December 28, 2013, Love posted two photos of herself with Erlandson on Facebook and Twitter, with a caption reading: "And this just happened ... 2014 going to be a very interesting year." Love also tagged Melissa Auf der Maur as well as Hole's former manager, Peter Mensch, in the post, alluding to a reconciliation with Erlandson and possible reunion in 2014.
On April 2, 2014, Rolling Stone reported that the Celebrity Skin line-up of the band had reunited (with Patty Schemel in lieu of Samantha Maloney). Rolling Stone erroneously reported Love's upcoming solo single, "Wedding Day" to be a product of this reunion. Shortly after, Love curtailed her statement, saying: "We may have made out but there is no talk of marriage. It's very frail, nothing might happen, and now the band are all flipping out on me." On May 1, in an interview with Pitchfork, Love discussed the possibility of a reunion, and also stated it had been "a mistake" releasing Nobody's Daughter as a Hole record in 2010. "Eric was right—I kind of cheapened the name, even though I'm legally allowed to use it. I should save "Hole" for the lineup everybody wants to see and had the balls to put Nobody's Daughter under my own name." Love further discussed the possibility of reuniting the band, saying:
No one's been dormant. Patty teaches drumming and drums in three indie bands. Melissa has her metal-nerd thing going on—her dream is to play Castle Donington with Dokken. Eric hasn't flipped—I jammed with him, he's still doing his Thurston [Moore]-crazy tunings, still corresponding with Kevin Shields. We all get along great. There are bands who reunite and hate each others' guts.
2019 – present: Possible reformation and attempted reunions
In October 2019, Hole rehearsed at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Los Angeles. Nothing transpired after the event, since Love had relocated to the United Kingdom afterwards. In March 2020, Love and Auf Der Maur planned a performance at the "Bans Off My Body" event, which was eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artistry
Composition
Initially, Hole drew inspiration from no wave and experimental bands, which is evident in their earliest recordings, specifically "Retard Girl", but frontwoman Love also drew from a variety of influences. Love cited post-punk group Echo & the Bunnymen and classic rock such as Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The band's first album, Pretty on the Inside, was heavily influenced by noise and punk rock, using discordant melodies, distortion, and feedback, with Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screams. Love described the band's earliest songwriting as being based on "really crazy Sonic Youth tunings." Nonetheless, Love claimed to have aimed for a pop sound early on: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band," she told Flipside magazine in 1991. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band the Germs. In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."
The band's second album Live Through This, captured a less abrasive sound, while maintaining the group's original punk roots. "I want this record to be shocking to the people who don't think we have a soft edge, and at the same time, [to know] that we haven't lost our very, very hard edge," Love told VH1 in 1994. The group's third album, Celebrity Skin, incorporated power pop into their hard rock sound, and was heavily inspired by California bands; Love was also influenced by Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine while writing the album. The group's 2010 release, Nobody's Daughter, featured a more folk rock-oriented sound, utilizing acoustic guitar and softer melodies.
The group's chord progressions by and large drew on elements of punk music, which Love described as "grungey", although not necessarily grunge. Critics described their song style as "deceptively wispy and strummy," combined with "gunshot guitar choruses." Although the group's sound changed over the course of their career, the dynamic between beauty and ugliness has often been noted, particularly due to the layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated arrangements.
Lyrical content
In a 1991 interview, Love stated that lyrics were "the most important" element of songwriting for her. Her lyrics explored a variety of themes throughout Hole's career, including body image, rape, child abuse, addiction, celebrity, suicide, elitism, and inferiority complex; all of which were addressed mainly from a female, and often feminist standpoint. This underlying feminism in Love's lyrics often led the public and critics to mistakenly associate her with the riot grrrl movement, of which Love was highly critical.
In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place [beautiful imagery] next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on Live Through This as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from Pretty on the Inside were excisions from her journals.
Throughout Hole's career, Love's lyrics were often influenced by literature: The title of the band's second album Live Through This, for example (as well as lyrics from the track "Asking for It") is directly drawn from Gone With the Wind; and the group's single "Celebrity Skin" (the title track to their 1998 album), contains quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Dante Rossetti's poem A Superscription. Love had had a minor background in literature, having briefly studied English literature in her early twenties.
Performances
Throughout the duration of the 1990s, the band received widespread media coverage due to Love's often rambunctious and unpredictable behavior onstage. The band often destroyed equipment and guitars at the end of concerts, and Love would ramble between songs, bring fans onstage, and stage dive, sometimes returning with her clothes torn off of her or sustaining injuries. In a 1995 New York Magazine article, journalist John Homans addressed Love's frequent stage diving during Hole's concerts:
The most shocking, frightening, and fascinating image in rock in the last few years is Courtney Love's stage dive ... When some male performers do it, it looks like muscular, frat-boy fun, controlled aggression ... For obvious reasons, the practice was strictly no-girls-allowed, but Love, typically, decided that she wanted to do it, too. Groped, ravaged, she compared the experience to being raped, wrote a song about it, and now does it just about every show.
Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and [the rest of the band] would just kind of stand there." The majority of Love's chaotic behavior onstage was a result of heavy drug use at the time, which she admitted: "I was completely high on dope; I cannot remember much about it." She later criticized her behavior during that time, saying: "I [saw] pictures of how I looked. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed. There's death and there's disease and there's misery and there's giving up your soul ... The human spirit mixed with certain powders is not the person, it's [a] demonic presence."
Love's stage attire also garnered notoriety, influenced in part by Carroll Baker's wardrobe in the film Baby Doll (1956). The style was later dubbed "kinderwhore" by the media, and consisted of babydoll dresses, slips and nightgowns, and smeared makeup. Kurt Loder likened her onstage attire to a "debauched ragdoll", and John Peel noted in his review of the band's 1994 Reading Festival performance, that "[Love], swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, ... would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." Rolling Stone referred to the style as "a slightly more politically charged version of grunge; apathy turned into ruinous angst, which soon became high fashion's favorite pose."
The band's set lists for live shows were often loose, featuring improvisational jams and rough performances of unreleased songs. By 1998, their live performances had become less aggressive and more restrained, although Love continued to bring fans onstage, and would often go into the crowd while singing.
Legacy
Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010. In spite of Love's often polarizing reputation in the media, Hole received consistent critical praise for their output, and was often noted for the predominant feminist commentary found in Love's lyrics, which scholars have credited as "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness". Love's subversive onstage persona and public image coincided with the band's songs, which expressed "pain, sorrow, and anger, but [an] underlying message of survival, particularly survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances." Music journalist Maria Raha expressed a similar sentiment in regard to the band's significance to third-wave feminism, stating, "Whether you love Courtney [Love] or hate her, Hole was the highest-profile female-fronted band of the '90s to openly and directly sing about feminism."
While Rolling Stone compared the effect of Love's marriage to Cobain on the band to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they noted that "Love's confrontational stage presence, as well as her gut-wrenching vocals and powerful punk-pop songcraft, made her an alternative-rock star in her own right." Author Nick Wise made a similar comparison in discussion of the band's public image, stating, "Not since Yoko Ono's marriage to John Lennon has a woman's personal life and exploits within the rock arena been so analyzed and dissected." The band has been cited as a major influence on several contemporary artists, including indie singer-songwriter Scout Niblett, Brody Dalle (of The Distillers and Spinnerette), Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, Tove Lo, Tegan and Sara, and the British rock band Nine Black Alps. The band ranked at number 77 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists list.
Materials loss
In 2008 a fire swept through Universal Studios Hollywood destroying buildings belonging to Universal Music Group. It was confirmed, in 2019, that the entire Hole back catalogue, along with hundreds of other artists' music, was completely lost, meaning reissues and remasters are now unlikely. Courtney Love and the band were one of the artists suing UMG for the loss; however, on August 16, 2019, the band was removed from that lawsuit as it was amended "based on UMG's representations that none of Hole's original masters were destroyed (subject to confirmation)".
Members
Timeline
Discography
Pretty on the Inside (1991)
Live Through This (1994)
Celebrity Skin (1998)
Nobody's Daughter (2010)
Accolades
{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Nominated work(s)
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|Grammy Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Rock Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|rowspan=3 style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Rock Song
| rowspan=2|"Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
|rowspan=2|Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group
|
|-
| 2000
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|MTV Video Music Awards
| 1995
| Best Alternative Video
| "Doll Parts"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| 1999
| Best Cinematography
| "Malibu"
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|NME Awards
| rowspan=3|1999
| Best Band
| Hole
|
|rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Album
| Celebrity Skin
|
|-
| Best Single
| "Celebrity Skin"
|
|-
! scope="row"|Spin Readers' Poll Awards
| 1994
| Album of the Year
| Live Through This
|
|style="text-align:center;"|
References
Sources
External links
Hole at Billboard
1989 establishments in California
2002 disestablishments in California
2009 establishments in California
2012 disestablishments in California
Alternative rock groups from California
American noise rock music groups
Punk rock groups from California
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups disestablished in 2002
Musical groups reestablished in 2009
Musical groups disestablished in 2012
Sympathy for the Record Industry artists
Caroline Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Sub Pop artists
Mercury Records artists
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
Feminist musicians
Third-wave feminism
Grunge musical groups
Courtney Love
Articles which contain graphical timelines
20th-century American guitarists
City Slang artists
Female-fronted musical groups | true | [
"The 135th (Limerick) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of Fencibles in the British Army, created and promptly disbanded in 1796. The regiment, raised by Sir Vere Hunt, did not see any active service; it served solely to recruit soldiers. On disbandment, the recruits were drafted into other regiments. The regiment has the interesting historical distinction of having had the highest regimental number of any British line regiment.\n\nReferences\n\nInfantry regiments of the British Army\nMilitary units and formations established in 1796\nMilitary units and formations disestablished in 1796\nFencible regiments of the British Army\nDefunct Irish regiments of the British Army\n1796 establishments in Great Britain",
"Claysburg is a census-designated place (CDP) along Interstate 99 and the Allegheny Front near the base of Blue Knob (Pennsylvania). As of 2010 census, it had a population of 1,625.\n\nDemographics\nAs of the census of 2000, there were 1,503 people, 616 households, and 442 families residing in the CDP. There were 653 housing units at an average density of 254.9/sq mi (98.5/km). The racial makeup of the CDP was 98.54% White, 0.13% African American, 0.33% from other races, and 1.00% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.73% of the population.\n\nThere were 616 households, out of which 35.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.9% were married couples living together, 20.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.2% were non-families. 25.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.41 and the average family size was 2.83.\n\nIn the CDP, the population was spread out, with 26.3% under the age of 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 27.2% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 17.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 78.8 males.\n\nThe median income for a household in the CDP was $27,625, and the median income for a family was $29,792. Males had a median income of $28,911 versus $17,931 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $13,277. About 17.0% of families and 16.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.2% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over.\n\nInteresting facts\nThe town is the 1961 location of Claysburg Air Force Station (originally Blue Knob Park).\n\nReferences\n\nCensus-designated places in Blair County, Pennsylvania\nCensus-designated places in Pennsylvania"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography"
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | when was Bob born? | 1 | when was Bob Eubanks born? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"Clarence Shirley Woolmer (27 June 1910 in Lewisham, London, England – 10 February 1999) was a former English cricketer. He was captain of United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) during the Ranji Trophy in 1948–1949 against Bombay State (Maharashtra).\n\nHis son Bob Woolmer (born in Kanpur) was a cricketer for England as well as a coach of South Africa and Pakistan. When Bob was born, Clarence placed bat and ball in Bob's cot hoping that he would eventually become a cricketer.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n Bio on CricInfo\n Cricket Archive\n Article on Bob Woolmer\n\n1910 births\n1999 deaths\nEnglish cricketers\nUttar Pradesh cricketers",
"Robert Hughes M.D. is a fictional character on the American soap opera As the World Turns. Bob was played by actor Don Hastings from October 1960 until the series' final episode on September 17, 2010. Actors Bobby Alford and Ronnie Welch played Bob previously between 1956 and 1960.\n\nHe was briefly married to Lisa Miller (with whom he had son Tom) during the 1960s; he and Lisa remain close friends. He is currently married to Kim Hughes, with whom he had a daughter, Sabrina, and a son, Chris.\n\nBob was also the last character seen on the show, leaving his office at the end of the final episode with the words \"Good night,\" which mirrored the first words spoken on the show, \"Good morning, dear,\" spoken by Helen Wagner as she portrayed Bob's mother, Nancy Hughes.\n\nStorylines\n\nEarly Storyline\nBob Hughes was the youngest child of Chris and Nancy Hughes and has always been a man of honor. Despite this, he's had a number of failed marriages and many women who didn't measure up. Bob was in college and planning to go to medical school, when he met, Lisa Miller, a young college student from Rockford, Illinois. Lisa was determined to get Bob to marry her, as she reasoned a doctor would bring her prosperity. When Bob succumbs to Lisa's charms and they are secretly married, Bob's parents tried to have the marriage annulled on the basis of the couple being too young, Lisa's announcement of her pregnancy put an end to Chris and Nancy plans and the couple moved in with the Hugheses. Though Bob tried to be a good husband to Lisa and a good father to their son, Tommy, Lisa soon grew bored with her life and left Bob for a rich shoe salesman. The man found Lisa too unsophisticated, however, and dumped her. Lisa tried to get back together with Bob, but his pride was hurt and he refused to take her back.\n\nSylvia and Sandy\nNot long after his divorce from Lisa, Bob fell for a sweet nurse named Sylvia Hill who was suffering from lupus. However, that relationship ended rather quickly since Sylvia decided to return home to her native Michigan. Bob continued to be busy building his medical career and became best friends with the older Dr. David Stewart. Meanwhile, at home, Tommy was lashing out at the Hugheses, thanks to Lisa's poisoning his mind against them. Blaming his father for the breakup of the marriage, Tommy destroyed \"daddy\" dolls and destroyed all gifts that Bob bought him. Finally, one day, Lisa suddenly left Oakdale with Tommy. Searching for him, the Hugheses discovered that he was placed in a military school in California and Bob and his father, Chris, retrieved the boy and brought him home. Now with his father, Tommy formed a close bond with his family again. Soon after, Bob received word that Lisa had gone to L.A. looking for Tommy, so he flew over to meet her only to find her nearly catatonic following a rape. Distressed at her condition, Bob brought her home. Also returning to Oakdale was Sylvia, whose lupus was in remission. Bob and Sylvia resumed their relationship and became engaged. Unfortunately by now, Lisa had recovered from her traumatic experience in L.A., and guilted Sylvia about splitting up the family. Not wanting to be a detriment to a potential reconciliation, Sylvia ended it with Bob and left town. However, though Lisa and Nancy, had hoped that he'd marry her again, he rebuffed her advances.\n\nBob's next wife was Sandy Wilson McGuire, a woman who was unjustly put in prison, and had a son from a previous marriage named Jimmy. Though both Tommy and Nancy opposed the union, with Nancy going as far as to tell Sandy that she'd always consider Lisa her daughter in law, Bob married Sandy anyway. The marriage was a happy one, until tragedy struck: Sandy was caught in a fire and was horribly burned. Sandy's condition left her terribly depressed and Bob had no choice but to place her in an institution. While Sandy was away, Bob's sister, Penny, who couldn't have children of her own, persuaded Sandy's ex-husband, Roy McGuire, to get custody of Jimmy, even though Roy really believed the boy should stay with Bob. This put Bob at odds with his sister, especially when Penny talked Roy into marrying her to ensure that he would get custody. Fortunately, Sandy soon recovered and returned to Bob, with Jimmy being returned to them. Later, it was Bob's turn to be caught in a fire. The fire left him blind and the stress of taking care of him became too much for Sandy and she left. Feeling betrayed, Bob divorced her and his eyesight later returned. Sandy returned to Oakdale a few years later and though she and Bob tried to make another go of their relationship, by now Sandy was too involved in her new career (modeling) and the two parted ways again.\n\nJennifer Ryan\nAfterwards, Bob fell for nurse Jennifer Ryan, the wife of Bob's old friend from medical school, Chuck Ryan. When Chuck learned he was dying, he asked Bob to take care of his family. Bob kept his word and ended up falling in love. Though Jennifer's daughter, Barbara, liked the Hughes family, Rick, who idolized his father, deeply resented Bob and vehemently opposed their relationship, going as far as to tell his mother that Lisa (who was now dating Bob's brother, Don) was pregnant with Bob's child. Jennifer saw right through the lie and married him. Unfortunately, Rick's poor performance at Memorial put a strain on their marriage because Jennifer continually accused Bob of being too hard on her son, who was an aspiring doctor. However, Bob refused to condone Rick's shoddy work, which included shamelessly stealing patients from Bob and David and making careless near-fatal diagnosis. With Rick a constant source of strife in the marriage, Bob and Jennifer's started coming apart. Finally, at a convention in Florida, Bob was pleasantly surprised to see Jennifer's sister, Kim Sullivan Reynolds. A singer, the widowed Kim was performing in Florida and she and Bob became reacquainted and had a fling. Afterwards, Kim, smitten with Bob, followed him back to Oakdale and observed for herself the deteriorating state of the marriage. Then came a shocking twist—both Jennifer and Kim ended up pregnant. Knowing there was a baby on the way changed everything and Kim decided to cover up the fact that she was pregnant with Bob's child - keeping the secret even from Bob himself. Although Kim had resolved to raise the child on her own, she quickly fell prey to Bob's rival, Dr. John Dixon, and fell for his arguments that she marry him to give the child a name. Later, one night, Bob and Jennifer fought and Bob ran out of his house and was hit by a car, in a delirious state, he blurted out to Jennifer that Kim was pregnant with his baby. Though shocked, Jennifer placed the brunt of the blame on herself and resolved to be a more understanding wife. Late that year, as Jennifer gave birth to their daughter, Frannie, while Kim was told that she had suffered a miscarriage. Kim stayed in her loveless marriage to John while Bob and Jennifer resolved to patch their marriage back together. Though things got easier when Rick left town, tragically, Jennifer would lose her life in a car accident, leaving Bob to raise Frannie alone.\n\nNorm Garrison's death and Val Conway\nNot long after, Sandy returned to town, running from her abusive husband, Norman Garrison. Soon, Norman followed demanding that she return to him. Accusing Bob of having an affair with Sandy, Norman suddenly suffered a heart attack and was admitted to Memorial where he later died after having another argument with someone. Soon an investigation, instigated by John Dixon, was conducted to see if Bob had caused Garrison's death. Bob was able to prove it was a woman who argued with Garrison the day he died, thus causing his death.\n\nAfter an uneventful relationship with Kim's former sister-in-law, Valerie Reynolds Conway, Bob found himself intrigued with a woman named Karen Peters, who confessed to running off with a file that would clear her father (a judge) of the wrongdoing that he was accused of. Meanwhile, D.A. Walter Vested tried to persuade Bob to retrieve the papers and give them to him, but, sensing something was wrong, Bob refused. Shortly after, Karen's hotel room was ransacked and she fled town, but Vested lured her back by having his thugs go after Bob. Seeing Karen, Bob warned her not to trust Vested since he believed he was corrupt. Soon, Vested caught up with them and pulled a gun on the pair, but was killed in a struggle over the gun. Not long after, Bob was shocked to learn that Karen herself was also involved in the white collar crimes and she was placed in jail.\n\nRelationships with Lyla and Kim\nYears later, Bob became involved with Nurse Lyla Montgomery, and they fell in love and became engaged. However, trouble came during Dee Stewart's rape trial against John when Lyla was forced to admit that John was the father of her oldest daughter, Margo. Distressed that Lyla never told him about knowing John, in fact she led him to believe that she never knew him until now, Bob told Lyla that he didn't know how he felt about her. Sadly, Lyla returned his ring. Next, Bob briefly married Miranda Marlowe, an international criminal. At one point, Miranda learned that her daughter, Bilan, was alive. Seventeen years earlier, Miranda, fearing for Bilan's safety, was forced to abandon the child after Bilan's father was murdered by Mr. Big's criminal organization. Sympathetic to her plight, Tom and Margo agreed to locate the girl and convince Bilan of her mother's love. Unbeknownst to them, Mr. Big was hoping to uncover a missing treasure that had belonged to Bilan's father; he was also looking for the teenager. Tom and Margo traveled from a convent in Paris to the island of Drasue where they found Bilan in a jungle village—but Mr. Big's men had followed them. Luckily, Bilan was able to escape and made her way to the US. Despite having some issues with her new stepmother, a nearly grown up Frannie became friends with Bilan. Unfortunately, when Frannie did this, she shunted aside, just a bit, another friend of hers, Marcy Thompson. Marcy started to believe that Frannie didn't like her because of how poor she was and so when Frannie, who was volunteering as a candy striper at Memorial, introduced Marcy to her dad, Marcy decided to get Frannie back by kissing the older, rather shocked, Bob. At this same time, wealthy Kirk McColl, who was starting to date Marcy after Frannie spurned him, got mad at Marcy because she started developing a crush on Dr. Bob. During the end of 1983, while Bob was getting very frustrated about all of Miranda's lies, Marcy decided this was her time to pounce on Dr. Bob, literally. One day, Marcy went to Bob's office and literally threw herself on top of him unto his couch. At that moment, in walked Miranda, Bilan, Kirk and Frannie. Although it was innocent on Bob's part, that event helped bring about the end of Bob and Miranda's marriage. Although truth be told, Miranda found the Hughes family hopelessly provincial and, when her suave old flame arrived, he was easily able to persuade her to leave Bob. Marcy would continue to have that crush on Bob, until Lisa finally set her straight.\n\nSoon after, Bob was finally able to marry the love of his life, and long-time friend, Kim. Soon after their marriage, Bob and Kim became involved in a mystery surrounding a young woman from England named Sabrina who looked an awful lot like Frannie. The Hugheses weren't the only ones curious about Sabrina — someone else was asking about her as well, and when Bob spotted Memorial's former hospital administrator, he came to a stunning conclusion about who Sabrina really was. Tracking down Lansing for confirmation, Bob found him and demanded to know if Sabrina was the baby that Kim was told had died years earlier. In the end, it was discovered that Kim had never miscarried her baby — Lansing and Rick Ryan sold the baby to the wealthy Fullertons. The story out, Bob and Kim welcomed Sabrina into the family. Sabrina eventually moved to Oakdale and lived, for a time, with Bob and Kim before moving to Montega. Not long after, Kim gave birth to Bob's youngest son, Christopher. The biggest crisis to hit the Hughes marriage was when Bob had an affair with his old friend, Susan Stewart, Kim's old rival. Though Kim threw him out of the house, eventually she forgave him and their marriage remained on solid ground.\n\nSerial killer Rick Decker\nIn his later years, Bob would face a professional crisis when three of his patients died under his care. Suffering from memory lapses during this time, Bob's handling of the cases was being looked into and he agreed to step down as head of Memorial. Though he initially balked at Chris's request that he seek out a specialist, he finally relented and made an appointment with the new geriatric specialist, Dr. Ric Decker. Though Chris feared that Bob may be suffering from Alzeheimer's, he actually had been suffering from a series of mini strokes that were treatable with medication. However, when more people started dying, it became apparent that there was a serial killer at Memorial. After bringing in a specialist, Walker Daniels, Bob was concerned when Daniels began suspecting Dr. Decker. Bob, however, stood by his doctor especially since there was no real evidence against him. However, Bob did find a key piece of evidence, the journal of a murdered nurse. Having realized who the killer was, Bob confronted him only to be injected with potassium chloride and lingering in a coma. Weeks later, he awoke to see Dr. Decker standing over him and called him a murderer before slipping back into a coma. Not long after, Bob awoke again for a brief moment, long enough to tell Chris, \"Ric.\" Soon after, Bob made a full recovery and named Ric as his attacker.\n\nStroke and Senility\nA few years later, after having left Oakdale to work in Pittsburgh and then Africa, Chris returned home with none other than Emily. Chris accepted Bob's offer to return to Memorial as head of research. Immediately, Chris was at loggerheads with his father over a research project conducted by Evan Walsh IV. While Chris felt the project was cutting-edge and would help people in the end, Bob felt it was way too risky. Though Bob had intended to groom Chris to eventually take over as Chief of Staff, Chris's arrogant ambitiousness unsettled Bob. While Emily encouraged Chris and even helped by printing a story condemning Bob for his closed minded reaction to the project, Dusty Donovan sided with Bob and warned that if the project was approved, he would pull the Jennifer Munson Foundation out of Memorial. That same day, Bob overheard Chris talking to Evan about his project; stating that Bob won't be a problem anymore. Finally, Bob had enough of his son's attitude and fired him from Memorial. That same day, Bob was left comatose following a stroke and, thanks to Kim's insistence that Bob wanted Chris to take over, Chris, who told no one of the huge argument he had with Bob, was sworn in as interim Chief of Staff. Defying his father's wishes, Chris approved Walsh's project. Soon, Dusty started accusing Chris of causing his father's stroke which Chris vehemently denied. Meanwhile, Bob lingered in a coma for six weeks. When Bob woke up, a humbled Chris apologized for his arrogant behavior.\n\nSigns of senility\nIn July 2009, Bob and Kim attended a surprise party for Casey. During the middle of the party, Bob turned to Alison and said, \"Nurse, would you send in the next patient?\" When she questioned him about it he assured her he was fine and walked away. Alison later told Kim about it, and Bob quickly interrupted, saying that he was simply making a joke and that Alison does not understand his sense of humor, to which Kim replied that few people do. They left the party to go have drinks with Lisa. While the three were chatting at the bar, Lisa got up and left to go speak to someone. Kim said to Bob how terrific he was to which he replied saying, \"You're pretty terrific yourself, Lisa.\" When Kim caught him on saying the wrong name, he quickly denied having said it, and Kim, having believed his mistake, blamed it on the champagne he had consumed.\n\n25th wedding anniversary\nKim and Bob celebrated 25 years of marriage on April 2, 2010. However, they discovered the man who initially performed their wedding ceremony was a clergyman and a fraud, thus making their marriage invalid. Kim chuckled and quoted, \"25 years of sin,\" as Bob opted to get remarried. Kim, however, shocked everyone when she declared she needed space and decided not to hasten getting remarried.\n\nNevertheless, after consulting Bob's mother Nancy Hughes McClosky, Barbara Ryan, and Lisa Miller Grimaldi, several of Oakdale's most well-known citizens, Kim did indeed remarry Bob. A surprise came when their daughter Frannie Hughes (Julianne Moore) returned to Oakdale briefly.\n\nDeparture from Oakdale\nIn the fall of 2010, after the death of his beloved mother, Nancy, and a health scare for their son Chris, Bob and Kim decided to retire from their demanding jobs, so that they could spend time together. The pair left Oakdale together in ATWT's final episode, airing September 17, 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Bob Hughes from soapcentral.com\nDr. Bob Hughes from soaps.com\n\nAs the World Turns characters\nFictional physicians\nTelevision characters introduced in 1956\nMale characters in television"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | What was his first occupation? | 2 | What was Bob Eubanks first occupation? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | true | [
"On 14 May 2011 the Mitchells Plain Backyarders' Association occupied two pieces of land in Kapteinsklip and Swartklip in Mitchells Plain. About 5,000 people participated in the occupation.\n\nOutcomes\n\nThere was a violent clash between occupiers and the police. Fourteen people were arrested. Following the occupation there were a number of protest in defense of the occupation. An eviction order was served on the occupiers and they were denied leave to appeal. One of the occupiers Faiza Meyer was quoted as saying \"I have been living on [this] land for four months, so what if we have this beautiful Constitution, it means nothing.\" The anti-land invasion unit destroyed the occupation. It was reported that the Anti-Land Invasion Unit acted with considerable violence that resulted in breaking Christen De Jager's leg.\n\nVideo\nMitchells Plain land invasion and police response, Bush Radio News Clip on the Occupation and the Police Response,\n\nNotes and references\n\nCape Town\nProtests in South Africa\nLand occupations in South Africa",
"The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia () is a museum and historic educational institution located in Riga, Latvia. It was established in 1993 to exhibit artifacts, archive documents, and educate the public about the 51-year period in the 20th century when Latvia was successively occupied by the USSR in 1940–1941, then by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944, and then again by the USSR in 1944–1991. Official programs for visits to Latvia of top level representatives of other countries normally include a visit to the Museum of the Occupation.\n\nThe institution also operates an exhibition in the Corner House - the former KGB headquarters in Riga.\n\nThe main museum building is currently closed for renovation; the new permanent exhibition is scheduled to re-open in spring 2022.\n\nHistory\n\nThe museum was established in 1993 after Paulis Lazda, a History Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, proposed the idea to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia to create a museum covering the occupation period of Latvia, from 1940 to 1991. This led to the establishment of the Occupation Museum Foundation (OMF), now the Occupation Museum Association (OMB), in spring 1993. The OMF was made of 11 people who aimed to establish, administer and finance the museum.\n\nThe first exhibition of the museum opened on 1 July 1993. The exhibition covered the period of the first Soviet occupation of Latvia from 1940 to 1941. The museum was expanded in the following years to cover the whole occupation period.\n\nMission \nThe museum's stated mission is to:\n \"Show what happened in Latvia, its land and people under two occupying totalitarian regimes from 1940 to 1991;\n \"Remind the world of the crimes committed by foreign powers against the state and people of Latvia; \n \"Remember the victims of the occupation: those who perished, were persecuted, forcefully deported or fled the terror of the occupation regimes.\n\nThe Museum Collection \nWhen the museum was established it began to collect objects relating to the occupation periods. The collection, as of the beginning of 2017, contained nearly 60,000 registered items. The collection also includes an audiovisual archive containing more than 2,300 video testimonials of deportees, refugees, and others affected by the occupations of Latvia. The audiovisual department has also made 10 documentary films.\n\nBuilding \nThe main museum building was built by the Soviets in 1971 to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Lenin, and until 1991 it served as a museum commemorating the Red Latvian Riflemen. The planned renovation of the building, which began in the summer of 2018 after years of planning and negotiations, means that since November 2012 the museum is temporarily housed in Raiņa bulvāris 7 (Rainis Boulevard), the site of the former US Embassy, nearby the Freedom Monument. It was planned that the renovated museum building, dubbed \"House For the Future\" and designed by the Latvian-American architect Gunnar Birkerts, would be completed in 2020. \n\nThe works were ultimately finished in late 2021, and in November the museum started its relocation back to the original building and the construction of the new permanent exhibition. The wall-shaped \"Tactile of History' () memorial to the victims of Soviet occupation was unveiled next to the museum in summer 2021. It is planned to reopen an exhibition at the original site in spring 2022.\n\nSee also \nSoviet Occupation Day, Latvia\nMuseum of Occupations in Tallinn, Estonia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1991 – Official website\n Museum of the Occupation of Latvia at Google Cultural Institute\n Education Programme of the Museum \n\n \n\nTourist attractions in Riga\nMuseums in Riga\nMuseums established in 1993\nHistory museums in Latvia\nCommemoration of communist crimes\nCold War museums\n1993 establishments in Latvia"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads"
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | Who did he model for? | 3 | Who did Bob Eubanks model for? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"The Clerc Classic Basketball Tournament originated at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf in 2000 under its Athletic Director, Michael Weinstock, who envisioned a national basketball tournament for outstanding athletes from the top Deaf schools. The tournament typically occurs during the second weekend of January. The school who wins that year's tournament often wins the year's Deaf Prep National Championship.\n\nLaurent Clerc?\n\nLaurent Clerc was born on December 26, 1785. An accident struck him at a young age: one side of his face was burnt after he fell into a fireplace. The fever resulting from the burnt ended with Clerc becoming Deaf.\n\nClerc had such devoted parents who sought various medicinal cures before learning about the Royal Institution for the Deaf in Paris, France. Clerc’s parents enrolled him at the school where he was put under the guidance of the school’s director, Abbe Roche-Ambroise Sicard. The school utilized sign language as the language of instruction which allowed many of Clerc’s hidden talents to emerge.\n\nClerc completed his study in seven years and was rewarded with the position of assistant teacher, in charge of the highest class at the Institution. He eventually moved up as teacher.\n\nAn event happened in 1816 during Clerc’s eight year of teaching which changed his life forever. He met a young idealist from America, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who was searching for an educational system for the Deaf. Gallaudet then observed Clerc working with students during numerous situations. Gallaudet ultimately asked Clerc to help him established the first school for the Deaf in America.\n\nClerc accepted and bade farewell to his family, friends, and boss. Gallaudet and Clerc set sail from France on June 18, 1816. During the 52-day voyage, they continued to share their knowledge with each other. Upon arrival in America, Clerc and Gallaudet began fundraising efforts by having Clerc present on instruction methods for the Deaf with Gallaudet assisting as interpreter. They traveled along the east coast, from Boston to Philadelphia, for nearly seven months. They taught and interviewed parents of Deaf children, garnering community support at the same time. Their efforts paid off with the establishment of the first school for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut on April 15, 1817. Clerc taught there for the next 41 years providing lessons in sign language and teacher training.\n\nClerc married a former pupil, Elizabeth Broadman, and fathered four children. Clerc died on July 18, 1869.\n\nDeaf people's lives nowadays would not have been possible without Laurent Clerc. As the first Deaf teacher in America, he contributed greatly towards the development of American Sign Language and deaf education.\n\nHistory of the Tournament\n\nClerc Classic I (2000)\nHost: Model Secondary School for the Deaf (Washington D.C.)\nBoys Champions: Phoenix Day School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\n\nClerc Classic II (2001)\nHost: Model Secondary School for the Deaf (Washington D.C.)\nBoys Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic III (2002)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Fremont (Fremont, CA)\nBoys Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic IV (2003)\nHost: Indiana School for the Deaf (Indianapolis, IN)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic V (2004)\nHost: Maryland School for the Deaf (Frederick, MD)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic VI (2006)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Riverside (Riverside, CA)\nBoys Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\nGirls Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic VII (2007)\nHost: Model Secondary School for the Deaf (Washington D.C.)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: California School for the Deaf, Riverside\n\nClerc Classic VIII (2008)\nHost: Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf (Faribault, MN)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Texas School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic IX (2009)\nHost: Maryland School for the Deaf (Frederick, MD)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: California School for the Deaf, Riverside\n\nClerc Classic X (2010)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Fremont (Fremont, CA)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XI (2011)\nHost: Texas School for the Deaf (Austin, TX)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XII (2012)\nHost: Indiana School for the Deaf (Indianapolis, IN)\nBoys Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\nGirls Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XIII (2013)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Riverside (Riverside, CA)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\nCheerleading Champions: California School for the Deaf, Riverside\n\nClerc Classic XIV (2014)\nHost: Indiana School for the Deaf (Indianapolis, IN)\nBoys Champions: California School for the Deaf, Fremont\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XV (2015)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Fremont (Fremont, CA)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XVI (2016)\nHost: Maryland School for the Deaf (Frederick, MD)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XVII (2017)\nHost: Texas School for the Deaf (Austin, TX)\nBoys Champions: Indiana School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XVIII (2018)\nHost: Model Secondary School for the Deaf (Washington D.C.)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf \nGirls Champions: Texas School for the Deaf \nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf \n\nClerc Classic XIX (2019)\nHost: California School for the Deaf, Riverside (Riverside, CA)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Texas School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XX (2020)\nHost: Indiana School for the Deaf (Indianapolis, IN)\nBoys Champions: Maryland School for the Deaf\nGirls Champions: Texas School for the Deaf\nCheerleading Champions: Model Secondary School for the Deaf\n\nClerc Classic XXI (2021)\nHost: California School for the Deaf Fremont (Fremont, CA)\nThe tournament has been cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nClerc Classic XXII (2022)\nHost: Maryland School for the Deaf (Frederick, MD)\nBoys Champions: TBD\nGirls Champions: TBD\nCheerleading Champions: TBD\n\nFast Facts\n\n Model and Indiana are tied for leading in hosting the Clerc Classic Basketball Tournament four times. Model hosted in 2000, 2001, 2007, and 2018. Indiana hosted in 2003, 2012, 2014 and 2020.\n When both boys' and girls' basketball teams from the same school win the championship in the same year, it is a feat. Only two schools have done this, California-Fremont did this in 2012. Maryland did it twice, in 2010 and became the first school to win both titles on its home turf in the same year, in 2016.\n\nGIRLS\n Model and Maryland are the only girls’ basketball teams to have won the championship on home turf, Model has done it twice in 2000 and 2007. Maryland girls' basketball have done this feat in 2016.\n Maryland girls’ basketball team is the first team to win three (2001, 2002, and 2003) and four (2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017) consecutive titles. Texas became the second girls team to win three consecutive titles from 2018 to 2020. \n Maryland School for the Deaf is leading for winning the most Clerc Classic Girls’ basketball titles, winning eight times – 2001, 2002, 2003, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Texas comes in second, with four titles.\n In the last nineteen tournaments, only six schools have won the Clerc Classic girls’ basketball titles; Maryland (8), Texas (4), Model (3), Indiana (2), California-Fremont (2), and Minnesota (1).\n\nBOYS\n Model, Indiana and Maryland are the only boys teams to have won the championship on their home turf. Model became the first boys team to do so in 2000, Indiana won in 2003 and Maryland won on its home turf in 2016.\n\n Model boys’ basketball team was the first team to win two consecutive titles, in 2001 and 2002, then Indiana did it twice in 2003 and 2004 & 2008 and 2009. Maryland is the third team to do so, in 2010 and 2011. \n Maryland is the first boys team to win three consecutive titles from 2018 to 2020. \n Indiana School for the Deaf and Maryland is tied for leading by winning the most Clerc Classic Boys’ basketball titles, winning seven times – Indiana won in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015 & 2017. Maryland won in 2007, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. \n In the last nineteen tournaments, only five schools have won the Clerc Classic boys’ basketball titles; Indiana (7), Maryland (7), California-Fremont (3), Model (2) and Phoenix Day (1).\n\nCHEERLEADING\n Model Secondary School for the Deaf has the most Clerc Classic cheerleading titles, with eight (2001, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020). \n Model cheerleading is the first team to win three (2016, 2017, 2018) and four (2016-2019) and five consecutive titles (2016-2020). They won the 2018 title on their home turf. \n In the last nineteen tournaments, only five schools have won the Clerc Classic cheerleading titles; Model (8), Indiana (5), Maryland (3) California-Riverside (3), and California-Fremont (1).\n\nExternal links\nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20160116225925/http://sportsmx.com/youth/high-school-events/clerc-classic/main\nhttp://www.tsdrangers.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=605110&type=d&pREC_ID=1083141 \n\nBasketball competitions in the United States",
"Elly Tibina Koot (born 1943) is a Dutch model who won the 1964 Miss Europe contest in Beirut, Lebanon.\n\nShe was born in Rotterdam, where her mother was visiting family, but grew up in Amsterdam on the Singel near the Bloemenmarkt. She was discovered by the fashion photographer Hans Dukkers. She married Frank Brandt in 1966. She and Brandt (at that time a photographer) met while shooting a commercial for Rexona - a brand of deodorant - for which he was a stand in model. Though primarily a photo model, Amsterdam she did fashion shows for and Fong Leng. From 1970 she also modeled in the United States for the Wilhelmina Models agency. In the 70s she was sometimes a jury member at Dutch beauty contests.\nIn 1976 she developed Cushing's disease for which she had a successful surgery in the United States. Since 1996 she is Dame de Salon of Mart Visser's fashion house in Amsterdam.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1943 births\nLiving people\nDutch female models\nDutch beauty pageant winners\nMiss Europe winners\nModels from Amsterdam\nPeople from Rotterdam"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads",
"Who did he model for?",
"and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | Who was the photo shoot for? | 4 | Who was the photo shoot for? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"Model Latina is an American reality competition show in which aspiring models compete against one another in fashion and cultural challenges. They are judged by a panel of fashion experts and celebrities from the American Latino entertainment industry. Model Latina is the first modeling competition of its kind to feature Latinas from all over the United States. The show airs on the cable network NuvoTV.\n\nAs of July 2012, five people have won the competition. Winners typically receive a one-year contract with leading modeling agency Q Management, a cash prize and an opportunity to be a NuvoTV host.\n\nFormat\nEach season of Model Latina has 10–13 episodes and begins with 10–20 contestants. Contestants are judged weekly on their overall appearance, participation in challenges, runway work and best shot from that week's photo shoot. In each episode, one contestant is eliminated from the competition, and in rare cases, a double elimination occurs.\n\nHosts and judges\nThe series employs a panel of judges who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition. Throughout its broadcast, the program has employed three different hosts and eleven different judges. Ellie Rodriguez was the show's host for seasons 1–3, and was replaced by Jazmín López\t for season 4 and by Jocelyn Pierce for season 5. The original judging panel consisted of Franco Lacosta, Jeffrey Kolsrud and Katrina Campins. For season 2, the original panel returned as guest judges with Jorge Ramon, Jai Rodriguez and Jennifer Gimenez as the main judges. Lacosta and Annette Rosario replaced Rodriguez and Gimenez for season 3 and Kolsrud served as the only guest judge. Tomiko Fraser Hines and Alex Cambert replaced Rosario and Ramon for season 4. For season 5, Carlos Ponce and Inés Rivero replaced Hines and Cambert.\n\nSeries overview\nNuvoTV has aired 5 installments of the Model Latina franchise, beginning with Model Latina, season 1 (or Model Latina: LA) in 2008. Each season has been filmed in a different location within the United States.\n\nModel Latina: LA \nModel Latina, season 1 (or Model Latina: LA) was the first season of Model Latina. It originally aired on NuvoTV from 27 July to 12 October 2008, and was hosted by Ellie Rodriguez. The judging panel consisted of photographer Franco Lacosta, Q Management's CEO Jeffrey Kolsrud and reality star Katrina Campins. The season was filmed in Los Angeles, California. The cycle's catchphrase was “Beauty is only the beginning.”\n\nThe winner of the competition was 25-year-old Jessica Caban from The Bronx, New York, emerging as Sí TV's (now NuvoTV) first ever Model Latina, with Darlenis Duran placing as runner-up. Caban's prizes were a modeling contract with Q Management, a photo spread in Latina magazine, an opportunity to be a Sí TV host, clothing from the Anna Fong Collection and a cash prize of .\n\nContestants\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nResults\n\n The contestant won photo of the week\n The contestant was in danger of elimination\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant won the competition\n\n Episodes 1, 2 and 3 were casting episodes. In episode 3, the pool of 20 semi-finalists was reduced to the 10 models who moved on to the main competition.\n In episode 8, Mishell and Victoria were called together as the bottom two and both were eliminated.\n Episode 11 was a recap episode.\n Episode 12 ended with a cliffhanger and continued in the following episode.\n\nChallenges\n\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: Natural posing (casting)\nEpisode 4 photo shoots: Swimsuit; Make-under look\nEpisode 5 casting: Music video: Veze Skante, \"Covergirl\"\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: Personal style\nEpisode 7 photo shoot: Paige Premium Denim print ad\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: Candid photographs for restaurant advertisements\nEpisode 9 commercial: Public service announcement for Voto Latino organization\nEpisode 10 photo shoot: Magazine layouts for Latina magazine\nEpisode 12 fashion show: Fashion show for Susana Mercedes and Eduardo Lucero (self-directed)\n\nModel Latina: Miami \nModel Latina, season 2 (or Model Latina: Miami) was the second season of Model Latina. It originally aired on NuvoTV from 2 August to 18 October 2009, and was hosted by Ellie Rodriguez. The judging panel consisted of Jai Rodriguez, Jennifer Gimenez and Jorge Ramon. The season was filmed in Miami, Florida. The cycle's catchphrase was “Passion. Style. Sophistication.”\n\nThe winner of the competition was 21-year-old Codie Cabral from Murrieta, California, with Christine Juarbe placing as runner-up. Cabral's prizes were a modeling contract with Q Management, an opportunity to be a Sí TV host and a cash prize of .\n\nContestants\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nResults\n\n The contestant won photo of the week\n The contestant was in danger of elimination\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant won the competition\n\n In episode 1, after their first photoshoot, the models were secretly judged by guest judge Jeffrey Kolsrud from Q Management. As a result, when they arrived to the model's house, Ellie announced that Yimarie, Lisa and Sonia have been eliminated.\n Episode 11 was a recap episode.\n Episods 12 ended with a cliffhanger and continued in the following episode.\n\nChallenges\n\nEpisode 1 photo shoot: Promo shoot \nEpisode 2 photo shoot: Nicolita swimsuits in the pool\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: Jungle runway\nEpisode 4 photo shoot: Mirror image of their mothers\nEpisode 5 photo shoot: Emotions with Alfonso de Anda\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: Epic Hotel's brochure\nEpisode 7 photo shoot: Verizon Wireless billboard ad in pairs\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: Liza & Tara's island girl\nEpisode 9 commercial: Orbit Mist hydrating gum\nEpisode 10 photo shoot: Compcard\nEpisode 12 fashion show: Fashion show for Anel Verna (self-directed)\n\nModel Latina: NYC \nModel Latina, season 3 (or Model Latina: NYC) was the third season of Model Latina. It originally aired on NuvoTV from 2 August to 25 October 2010, and was hosted by Ellie Rodriguez. The judging panel consisted of Jorge Ramon, Franco Lacosta and new judge Annette Rosario. Online castings took place on March 15, 2010. The season was filmed in New York City, New York. The cycle's catchphrase was “Competition Beyond the Runway.”\n\nThe winner of the competition was 20-year-old Elora Pérez from Queens, New York, with Jessica Santiago and Nashlly Estefania Sokoli both placing as runners-up. Pérez's prizes were a modeling contract with Q Management, an opportunity to be a Sí TV host and a cash prize of .\n\nContestants\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nResults\n\n The contestant won photo of the week\n The contestant was in danger of elimination\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant was originally eliminated, but was saved\n The contestant quit the competition\n The contestant won the competition\n\n In episode 1, after their first and second photoshoot, the models were secretly judged by guest judge Jeffrey Kolsrud from Q Management. As a result, when they arrived to the model's house, Ellie announced that Carla, Yami and Patricia have been eliminated.\n In episode 3, Victoria quit the competition. As a result, Yami, who was eliminated in episode 1, was chosen to return to the competition.\n Episode 11 was a recap episode.\n\nChallenges\n\nEpisode 1 photo shoot: Promo shoot \nEpisode 2 photo shoot: Nicolita bikini on a bus\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: Concrete jungle in Harlem\nEpisode 4 commercial: Verizon in groups\nEpisode 5 photo shoot: Bloomingdale's fashion show\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: Orbit's street cleanup\nEpisode 7 commercial: Nationwide Insurance in close-up\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: High fashion at the Brooklyn Bridge\nEpisode 9 photo shoot: Dance genres with male dancer\nEpisode 10 photo shoot: Alter-ego for Ford Fiesta\nEpisode 12 photo shoot: Fuerza Bruta\nEpisode 13 photo shoot and fashion show: Mother and daughter; Fashion show for Hernan Lander\n\nModel Latina: Las Vegas \nModel Latina, season 4 (or Model Latina: Las Vegas) was the fourth season of Model Latina. It originally aired on NuvoTV from 15 August to 24 October 2011, and was hosted by Jazmín López (replacing Ellie Rodriguez). The judging panel consisted of Franco Lacosta and 2 new judges Alex Cambert and Tomiko Fraser Hines. The season was filmed in Las Vegas, Nevada. The cycle's catchphrase was “Bigger. Brighter. Bolder.”\n\nThe winner of the competition was 25-year-old Erika Marie Cavazos from Weslaco, Texas, with Stephanie Pagan placing as runner-up. Cavazos's prizes were a modeling contract with Q Management, an opportunity to be a Sí TV host and a cash prize of .\n\nContestants\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nResults\n \n\n \n The contestant won photo of the week\n The contestant was in danger of elimination\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant was originally eliminated, but was saved\n The contestant won the competition\n\nChallenges\n \nEpisode 1 photo shoot: Burlesque at the pool\nEpisode 2 photo shoot: Nude beauty shots with shadows\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: 1940's inspired Pin-ups\nEpisode 4 photo shoot: Snakes & Tigers\nEpisode 5 photo shoot: Ring Girls\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: Same-sex newlyweds\nEpisode 7 photo shoot: Zumanity showgirls\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: Posing on a dress out of Orbitz gum wrappers\nEpisode 9 photo shoot: 7 Deadly Sins on the desert\nEpisode 10 photo shoot: Editorial at the Grand Canyon\nEpisode 11 photo shoot: Glamour at The Strat\nEpisode 12 photo shoot: 1970's retro shoot for Latina Magazine\nEpisode 13 photo shoot: Showgirls\n\nModel Latina: South Beach \nModel Latina, season 5 (or Model Latina: South Beach) was the fifth season of Model Latina. It originally aired on NuvoTV from 28 May to 23 July 2012, and was hosted by Jocelyn Pierce (replacing Jazmín López). The judging panel consisted of Franco Lacosta and new judges Carlos Ponce and Inés Rivero. The season was filmed in Miami Beach, Florida. This was the first season of Model Latina to include only 10 contestants and air fewer than 13 episodes. The season's 10 episodes were broadcast over a nine-week span. Each episode was shortened from the previous 60 minutes to 30.\n\nThe winner of the competition was 21-year-old Muriel Villera from Hialeah, Florida, with Marlene Cruz and Oneisys Amador placing as runners-up. Villera's prizes were a modeling contract with Q Management, an opportunity to be a Sí TV host and a cash prize of .\n\nContestants\n\nNotes\n\nEpisodes\n\nResults\n\n The contestant won photo of the week\n The contestant was in danger of elimination\n The contestant was disqualified from the competition\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant was originally eliminated, but was saved\n The contestant won the competition\n\n In episode 9, at the judging room, it was discovered that Rachell had not followed the requirement to terminate all prior modelling contracts before competing on the show.\n\nChallenges\n\nEpisode 1 photo shoot: Self-styled runway\nEpisode 2 photo shoot: Underwater swimsuit with dolphins\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: Action-packed shoot in pairs\nEpisode 4 photo shoot: Lingerie\nEpisode 5 photo shoot: Luxury in the yacht with Carlos Ponce\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: High-fashion sophisticated woman in Vizcaya villa\nEpisode 7 commercial: Nissan Zero Emission car in one-take\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: Goddesses of Speed\nEpisode 9 photo shoot: Jewelry at the beach\nEpisode 10 fashion show: Fashion show for Juan Colón\n\nSponsors\nFor season 1, Hewlett-Packard and Southwest Airlines were the commercial sponsors. Verizon Wireless, Fuze and Wrigley were series sponsors for season 2. The series sponsors for season 3 were Verzion Wireless, Bloomingdale's and Orbitz. For season 4, Verzion Wireless and Orbit provided sponsorship. Verzion Wireless and Revlon were series sponsors for season 5.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Website (via Internet Archive)\n\n2008 American television series debuts\n2012 American television series endings\n2000s American reality television series\n2010s American reality television series\nEnglish-language television shows\nModeling-themed reality television series",
"Slovenski Top Model, Season 1 was the first season of a reality documentary based on Tyra Banks America's Next Top Model that pits contestants from Slovenia against each other in a variety of competitions to determine who will win title of the next Slovene Top Model and a lucrative modelling contract with Alen Kobilica Models agency, a spread in the Slovenian issue of Elle, car Seat Ibiza, the winner will also become face of Maybeline New York for Slovenia, she will receive mobile package Orto Muziq for 2 years and hopes of a successful future in the modeling business.\n\nThe first season was hosted by Slovene model Nuša Šenk. Judging panelists were Irena Lušičić, Milan Gačanovič, Petra Windschnurer, Zoran. Girls were allowed to audition between the ages of 16 to 27 and have to be taller than 170 cm (5' 7\"). Auditions have been held in the seven biggest cities of Slovenia (Maribor, Ljubljana, Kranj, Celje, Novo Mesto, Nova Gorica, and Koper).\n\nOn December 22, 16-year-old Maja Fučak from Koper was crowned the first winner of Slovenski Top Model over 22 year old Tina Grebenšek after both walked on a fashion show in Belgrade. Despite landing in the bottom two at the very first judging, Fučak beat 13 of her fellow competitors.\n\nContestants\n\nSummaries\n\nCall-out order\n\n The contestant was eliminated\n The contestant quit the competition\n The contestant was the original eliminee but was saved\n The contestant was part of a non-elimination bottom two\n The contestant won the competition\n\nIn episode 1, the pool of 22 girls was reduced to the final 14 who would move on to the main competition. This first call-out does not reflect their performance.\nIn episode 3, Lejla quit the competition. Therefore, there was no elimination that episode.\nIn episode 7, Kamila quit the competition. Therefore, there was no elimination that episode.\n\nPhoto Shoot Guide\nEpisode 1 photo shoot: Swimwear (casting)\nEpisode 2 photo shoot: Fairies in mountains\nEpisode 3 photo shoot: Maybelline beauty shoot\nEpisode 4 photo shoot: Naked in golden water\nEpisode 5 photo shoot: Hollywood divas\nEpisode 6 photo shoot: Futuristic underwater \nEpisode 7 photo shoot: Orto babes for Simobil\nEpisode 8 photo shoot: Protective sisters with babies\nEpisode 9 photo shoot: High fashion with chairs and snakes in 3D\nEpisode 10 photo shoot: Greek kiss for S.oliver\nEpisode 11 photo shoot: Fishing village in Italy\nEpisode 12 photo shoot: Lingerie \nEpisode 13 photo shoot: A high fashion story editorial\nEpisode 14 photo shoot: Elle cover shots\n\nControversy\nAfter being elimination from the show Samanta Škrjanec was accused of hosting a scam beauty pageant called Miss Eco by competitors as well as a scam modelling agency. It was also discovered that she was hosting an erotic quiz at the age of 19.\n\nReferences\n\nTop Model\n2010 Slovenian television seasons"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads",
"Who did he model for?",
"and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him.",
"Who was the photo shoot for?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | Where did he go from modeling? | 5 | Where did Bob Eubanks go from modeling? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"Where Did We Go Wrong may refer to:\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Dondria song), 2010\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Toni Braxton and Babyface song), 2013\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Petula Clark from the album My Love\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Diana Ross from the album Ross\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a 1980 song by Frankie Valli",
"James E. Rumbaugh (born August 22, 1947) is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologist who is best known for his work in creating the Object Modeling Technique (OMT) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML).\n\nBiography \nBorn in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Rumbaugh received a B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an M.S. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and received a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT under Professor Jack Dennis.\n\nRumbaugh started his career in the 1960s at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) as a lead research scientist. From 1968 to 1994 he worked at the General Electric Research and Development Center developing technology, teaching, and consulting. At General Electric he also led the development of Object-modeling technique (OMT), an object modeling language for software modeling and designing.\n\nIn 1994, he joined Rational Software, where he worked with Ivar Jacobson and Grady Booch (\"the Three Amigos\") to develop Unified Modeling Language (UML). Later they merged their software development methologies, OMT, OOSE and Booch into the Rational Unified Process (RUP). In 2003 he moved to IBM, after its acquisition of Rational Software. He retired in 2006.\n\nHe has two grown up sons and (in 2009) lived in Saratoga, California with his wife.\n\nWork \nRumbaugh's main research interests are formal description languages, \"semantics of computation, tools for programming productivity, and applications using complex algorithms and data structures\".\n\nIn his graduate work at MIT, Rumbaugh contributed to the development of data flow computer architecture. His thesis described parallel programming language, parallel processor computer and a basis for a network architecture, which orients itself at data flow. Rumbaugh made further contributions to Object Modeling Technique, IDEF4, the Rational Unified Process and Unified Modeling Language.\n\nPublications \nRumbaugh has written a number of books about UML and RUP together with Ivar Jacobson and Grady Booch. A selection includes:\n\n 1975. A Parallel Asynchronous Computer Architecture For Data Flow Programs. MIT thesis \n 1991. Object-Oriented Modeling and Design. With others. Prentice Hall, .\n 1996. OMT insights : perspectives on modeling from the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. Foreword by James Coplien.\n 1999. Unified software development process\n 2005. Object-oriented modeling and design with UML\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nJames Rumbaugh – Biography on InformIT\n\n1947 births\nLiving people\nMIT Department of Physics alumni\nCalifornia Institute of Technology alumni\nAmerican technology writers\nAmerican computer scientists\nDigital Equipment Corporation people\nGeneral Electric people\nIBM employees\nAmerican software engineers\nSoftware engineering researchers\nComputer science writers\nUnified Modeling Language\nPeople from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania\nPeople from Saratoga, California"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads",
"Who did he model for?",
"and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him.",
"Who was the photo shoot for?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he go from modeling?",
"After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | What school did he graduate from? | 6 | What school did Bob Eubanks graduate from? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | true | [
"Ellsworth K. Gaulke (October 6, 1925 – August 1, 1993) was an American businessman, educator, and politician.\n\nBorn in Wausau, Wisconsin, Gaulke served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from what is now Central Michigan University and did graduate work at University of Minnesota Duluth. He was a school principal and restaurant owner in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin. He served as town board chairman and on the school board. Gaulke served in the Wisconsin State Assembly as a Democrat in 1971.\n\nNotes\n\n1925 births\n1993 deaths\nPeople from Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin\nPoliticians from Wausau, Wisconsin\nMilitary personnel from Wisconsin\nUnited States Army Air Forces soldiers\nCentral Michigan University alumni\nUniversity of Minnesota Duluth alumni\nBusinesspeople from Wisconsin\nEducators from Wisconsin\nWisconsin Democrats\nMayors of places in Wisconsin\nSchool board members in Wisconsin\nMembers of the Wisconsin State Assembly\n20th-century American businesspeople\n20th-century American politicians",
"William Arthur Brownell (May 19, 1895 – May 28, 1977) was an American educational psychologist.\n\nEarly life \nBrownell was born in Smethport, Pennsylvania on May 19, 1895. He graduated from Allegheny College in 1917. He received a Ph.D. in 1926 from the University of Chicago.\n\nAcademic career \nFrom 1930 to 1949 he was a professor of educational psychology at Duke University where he did his most important research.\n\nFrom 1950 to his retirement in 1962 he was the Dean of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education.\n\nIn 1965 he received the E. L. Thorndike Award.\n\nPersonal life \nHe married Kathryn K. (1903-2001) and they had at least one child.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican psychologists\n1895 births\n1977 deaths\nUniversity of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education faculty\nDuke University faculty\n20th-century psychologists"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads",
"Who did he model for?",
"and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him.",
"Who was the photo shoot for?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he go from modeling?",
"After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys.",
"What school did he graduate from?",
"He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | did he ever go to college? | 7 | did Bob Eubanks ever go to college? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"\"Did You Ever See a Lassie?\" is a folk song, nursery rhyme, and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 5040.\n\nLyrics\nModern versions of the lyrics include:\n\nDid you ever see a lassie,\nA lassie, a lassie?\nDid you ever see a lassie,\nGo this way and that?\nGo this way and that way,\nGo this way and that way.\nDid you ever see a lassie,\nGo this way and that?\n\nDid you ever see a laddie,\nA laddie, a laddie?\nDid you ever see a laddie,\nGo this way and that?\nGo this way and that way,\nGo this way and that way.\nDid you ever see a laddie,\nGo this way and that?\n\nOrigins\nThe use of the terms \"lassie\" and \"laddie\" mean that this song is often attributed to possible origins in Scotland (by various forms of media; see \"references\" section), but it was first collected in the United States in the last decade of the nineteenth century and was not found in Great Britain until the mid-twentieth century. However, it can be surmised that the words to the song may have come from Scottish immigrants or Scottish-Americans because of the aforementioned terms.\n\nAlong with \"The More We Get Together\", it is generally sung to the same tune as \"Oh du lieber Augustin\", a song written in Germany or Vienna in the late seventeenth century.\n\nIt was first published in 1909, in Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium by Jessie Hubbell Bancroft.\n\nAs a game\nThe song is often accompanied by a circle singing game. Players form a circle and dance around one player. When they reach the end of the verse they stop, the single in the middle performs an action (such as Highland dancing), which everyone then imitates, before starting the verse again, often changing the single player to a boy, or a boy can join the center player - thus creating an extra verse in the song (\"Did you ever see some children...\").\n\nReferences in popular culture and children's media\nThe song is featured in the 1963 motion picture Ladybug, Ladybug. In the movie, children sing the song as part of a game while walking home from school during a nuclear bomb attack drill.\n\nThe song, as sung by children, was used in a 1990 commercial for Maidenform, and played over a succession of pictures of women in uncomfortable-looking clothing, was followed by the tag-line, \"Isn't it nice to live in a time when women aren't being pushed around so much anymore?\"\n\nThe song is featured in an episode of The Simpsons, \"The Otto Show\", and was titled \"Hail to the Bus Driver\".\n\nReferences\n\nScottish folk songs\nEnglish children's songs\nTraditional children's songs\nAmerican nursery rhymes\nEnglish nursery rhymes\nSinging games\nNursery rhymes of uncertain origin\nYear of song unknown\nSongwriter unknown",
"\"Long Way to Go\" is a song by American singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks from her fourth solo studio album The Other Side of the Mirror (1989). It was released on July 1989, by the Modern label, as the second single from The Other Side of the Mirror. Written by Nicks, Rick Nowels and Charles Judge, the song was conceptualized and lyrics written by Nicks in late 1985 after an altercation with her former lover, Joe Walsh. \n\n\"Long Way to Go\" reached number 11 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and number 60 on the UK Singles Chart in 1989.\n\nBackground and composition\nNicks said the following about the song in an interview in 1989:\n\n\"I remain real good friends with most of the men in my life. 'Long Way to Go' was not written in such a nice way. This happened to be an experience that I had with somebody that I did very much love, who... we had been broken up for a long time before, a year before, and I had just finished Rock a Little, and I had walked into my house with Rock a Little under my arm, an acetate... the phone rang, and it was him, and he wanted me to drive two and a half hours to wherever it was that he lived... and I was very tired, and it was very late, it was like 3:30, 4 in the morning, and I turned around to somebody that was living in my house at that time, and I said, 'should I go?' And they said, 'well, it's a pretty long way to go to say goodbye again. I thought that we'd already, basically... Stevie, it's taking you an awful long time to get over this. Do you want to go down and start it up again?' And so I went back and forth and back and forth in my mind, and finally he said to me 'I'm sending a limousine for you.' And I said alright. And so... chump that I was, I got in the car and drove down there and played the record for him, and he kept it. Which I will never forgive him for. He kept my first acetate. And I think the last thing that I did say to him was, 'you know, it's a real long way to go to say goodbye again. I thought we already did that. Have fun, tell the world.' Which basically means words we don't say over the radio. Goodbye. Forever this time. Don't ever call me again. I mean, he put me in the car, and I was hysterical in tears, and I cried all the way home, and I said, 'I will never, ever, ever put myself in that position again. Nobody will ever do that to me again. As much as I loved him, I will never let that happen again.\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAllMusic\n\n1989 songs\n1989 singles\nStevie Nicks songs\nSongs written by Stevie Nicks\nSong recordings produced by Rupert Hine\nModern Records (1980) singles"
]
|
[
"Bob Eubanks",
"Biography",
"when was Bob born?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first occupation?",
"The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads",
"Who did he model for?",
"and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him.",
"Who was the photo shoot for?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he go from modeling?",
"After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys.",
"What school did he graduate from?",
"He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955.",
"did he ever go to college?",
"Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode."
]
| C_3bbf8ca618724180af57be3e4a066710_1 | What did he major in? | 8 | What did Bob Eubanks major in? | Bob Eubanks | Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 - April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (nee McClure) (February 15, 1907 - July 24, 1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, when he was scheduled to do an ad photo shoot with him. He watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he would become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, his first radio exposure was at KACY Radio in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962 he was promoted to morning drive, then a year later moved to his long-running 6-9pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts, such as The Beatles 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances, The Rolling Stones, during the first two years of the American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John and Merle Haggard, among others. Eubanks attended Pierce College in the early 60s, according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode. Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m2) portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to 26 acres (110,000 m2). The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Irma handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. Irma died in 2002 after a prolonged illness. Around 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and his wife put their Westlake Village, CA home on the market. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Robert Leland Eubanks (born January 8, 1938) is an American disc jockey, television personality and game show host, best known for hosting the game show The Newlywed Game on and off since 1966. He also hosted the successful revamp version of Card Sharks from 1986 to 1989. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work in 2000. It is in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where he worked during the first years of his broadcasting career. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Biography
Eubanks was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised primarily in Pasadena, California, where he grew up listening to music, most notably favorites like Frank Sinatra and Doc Watson. His parents, John Otho Leland Eubanks (September 28, 1905 – April 11, 1995) and Gertrude Eubanks (née McClure; 1907–1997), were originally from Missouri. They moved to Flint during the Great Depression, where their only child was born, before moving on to California. The young boy became a child model, doing photo shoots for ads and meeting his idol, Gene Autry, during an ad photo shoot with him.
Eubanks watched popular classic television and quiz game shows. Also growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he was influenced by Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cullen. He attended Pasadena High School, where he graduated in 1955. After graduation from high school, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College (according to his commentary on a Card Sharks episode) and then went on to become one of California's most popular disc jockeys. In 1956, Eubanks worked at his first radio station, KACY in Oxnard, California. He joined KRLA in Pasadena in 1960 to do the overnight show. In the spring of 1962, he was promoted to morning drive; a year later, he moved to his long-running 6–9 pm evening slot. During most of the 1960s, he was also a producer of concerts such as the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances and the Rolling Stones during the first two years of their American tour. While still in Los Angeles, he also produced such artists as Barry Manilow, The Supremes, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, among others.
Eubanks married Irma Brown, an avid athlete, ranch forewoman and artist, on September 10, 1969. They had three children: Trace, a retired firefighter; Corey, a stuntman; and Theresa. In 1970, the couple purchased a portion of a working cattle ranch, and later expanded it to . The entire family enjoyed roping and riding, with Eubanks participating in rodeos during his spare time. Eubanks is a gold card member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Brown handled interior decorating, landscaping, and mounting one to two equestrian shows a year. She died in 2002 after a prolonged illness.
In 2004, Eubanks married Deborah James, a woman 29 years younger. James is a wedding/events coordinator in Ventura, California and has her own company, Bella Vita Events. The couple has a young son, Noah. In October 2010, Eubanks and James put their Westlake Village, California home on the market.
The Newlywed Game and country music business
In 1966, Eubanks received a phone call from Chuck Barris, asking him to host a new game show, The Newlywed Game; the show premiered on ABC later that same year. During its debut, it was an immediate hit, and the show's popularity led the network to expand the prime-time lineup, where it had run on the air for five years. Only 28 years old when he started hosting, Eubanks became widely popular for bringing a youthful energy to daytime television, pressing contestants into giving embarrassing and hilarious answers. The Newlywed Game was also ranked as one of the top three daytime game shows, for five consecutive seasons, between 1968 and 1973, and was ranked in the top three prime-time game shows, also for five seasons, between 1966 and 1971.
While hosting The Newlywed Game, Eubanks was known for using the catchphrase "makin' whoopee", in reference to sexual intercourse. It was Eubanks who borrowed the term from the song of the same name, in an attempt to keep parents with young children from having to explain the facts of life because of a television show. While the network was comfortable with the term "making love", its Standards and Practices Department did not allow the use of the word "panties".
While not taping, he also pursued a career in the country music business, where he served as manager of such artists as Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins. The same year, he also signed Merle Haggard to an exclusive live-performance contract, producing more than 100 dates per year with the performer for almost a decade.
The Newlywed Game ended in 1974, after 2195 episodes, making Eubanks one of the most viewed game show hosts to date. He also hosted various editions in syndication (1977–1980, 1985–1988 and 1997–1999). For season two of the show's 2009 revival on GSN, Eubanks hosted a celebrity charity episode with Carnie Wilson and her husband Rob Bonfiglio playing against Carnie's sister Wendy and her husband Daniel Knutson, and their mother Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford and her current husband Daniel Rutherford. In spring 2010, Eubanks hosted another episode of The Newlywed Game, subtitled "Game Show Kings". It featured Monty Hall and his wife Marilyn Hall, Peter Marshall and his wife Laurie Stewart, and Wink Martindale with his wife Sandy. This made Eubanks the only person to host the same game show in six consecutive decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s).
In 1988, Eubanks left The Newlywed Game to pursue other interests (though he was still hosting Card Sharks on CBS for another seven months) and was replaced by Paul Rodriguez.
In 1996, Eubanks appeared as a substitute host of Prime Time Country on The Nashville Network.
Other game shows
After Newlywed Game, he hosted a number of other game shows in his career, including Rhyme and Reason, Card Sharks, Dream House, The Diamond Head Game, Trivia Trap, and Powerball: The Game Show. Eubanks also auditioned to host the CBS daytime version of Wheel of Fortune; however, Bob Goen was hired instead.
In 1985, Mark Goodson hired Eubanks, a second time (the first being the aforementioned Trivia Trap), to host a revamped version of the show Card Sharks for CBS. Eubanks hosted Card Sharks throughout its CBS run from January 1986 until its demise in March 1989. Prior to hosting Card Sharks, he appeared as a special guest on the original NBC version alongside Jim Perry to promote his 1979 game show All Star Secrets, which he also produced.
His final network game show was Family Secrets. In recent years, he has hosted or co-hosted all five of NBC's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments specials. Eubanks was also one of three rotating hosts (along with Chuck Woolery and Jamie Farr) of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton until the show closed in April 2008.
Besides producing Hill-Eubanks's All Star Secrets, the company also produced The Guinness Game in 1979–80, The Toni Tennille Show in 1980, Buddy Hackett's You Bet Your Life revival in 1980, and Infatuation (which Eubanks also hosted) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1995 Eubanks also traveled to Britain to host a British version of this series, Infatuation UK, produced by Thames Television for UK cable network Living TV. Eubanks tried acting, but found he was not good at doing lines; he also learned the game show business was far more lucrative and less confining.
Radio
Prior to entering game shows, Eubanks was a popular radio DJ at station KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles as well as a music promoter and manager, between 1960 and 1968. He was responsible for bringing The Beatles to Los Angeles for their first West Coast performances in 1964 and 1965 (mortgaging his house to do so), all of which took place at the famed Hollywood Bowl, with fellow KRLA DJs Dave Hull and Reb Foster joining Eubanks in introducing them. He also operated several Cinnamon Cinder nightclubs. In the early to mid 1960s, the house band at his the Traffic Circle Cinnamon Cinder club was The Vibrants.
He stood in for Casey Kasem twice on radio's American Top 40: January 9–10, 1982 (that year's first regular episode), and April 16–17, 1983.
Other appearances
Eubanks hosted the televised 1964 Miss Teen USA pageant, with actor Sebastian Cabot making an appearance as one of the guests.
Eubanks appeared in Michael Moore's 1989 documentary Roger & Me. The film documented Moore's attempts to track General Motors CEO Roger Smith to confront him about the economic devastation resulting from the company's closure of eleven manufacturing plants in Flint, Michigan. Eubanks, a native of Flint, was interviewed about his views on the downsizing, and was filmed telling an off-color homophobic, anti-Semitic joke:
According to Moore in the film's DVD commentary, Eubanks attempted to denounce the film with the Anti-Defamation League for containing anti-Semitic content, despite the fact that the only anti-semitic content in the film was contributed by Eubanks himself. In a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television, Eubanks discussed his encounter with Moore and gave an explanation on how the ill-fated joke came about.
In 1992, Eubanks appeared on the TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" hosting the game show "Double Trouble". That same year, he also made a cameo in the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hosting the game show "Ding-Dang-Dong", where he mentioned that the show's contestants stayed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and also gave the phone number for reservations (which allowed Kevin McCallister, played by Macaulay Culkin, to check in).
He has also hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade on Los Angeles television channel KTLA since 1976 and with Stephanie Edwards from 1978–2005. In 2006, Eubanks continued to host with Edwards's replacement, KTLA Morning Show anchor Michaela Pereira. Edwards returned to her co-hosting position alongside Eubanks in 2009. In September 2015, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards announced on the KTLA Morning News that the 2016 parade will be their last. In 2017, they were replaced by Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines.
Eubanks appeared as himself on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel in the episode "The Honeymoon's Over", which aired May 1999. He guest-starred on That '70s Show in the January 2000 episode "Eric's Stash".
He also hosted for some years the Miss California USA Pageant and Mrs. International Pageant, sister pageant to the Miss International (United States) Pageant, between 2000 and 2003.
On July 6, 2007, Eubanks sat in as a celebrity "Mob Member" on the NBC game show 1 vs. 100. A year after that, he appeared as a GSN Live guest on April 4, 2008, and returned on May 18, 2010. His most recent television appearance (not counting his annual KTLA Rose Parade appearances) was on The Amazing Race 17 season finale, which aired December 12, 2010. In 2011, Eubanks hosted a special version of The Newlywed Game, live at Champion's Week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
His autobiography, It's in the Book, Bob (), was published in 2004.
Eubanks briefly appears in the music video for The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get a Job?"
In 2013, Eubanks toured with "America's Greatest Game Shows: Live on Stage".
In 2015, he appeared as a host of a couples game on Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars (WE channel).
References
External links
World Poker Tour Profile
1938 births
American radio DJs
American game show hosts
Living people
People from Flint, Michigan
People from Greater Los Angeles
Beauty pageant hosts
Pasadena High School (California) alumni | false | [
"Eber Worthington Cave (July 14, 1831 - March 28, 1904) was a journalist, civic promoter, and politician in Texas. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and began working as a printer in New Jersey. He moved to Texas in 1853 and bought the Nacogdoches Chronicle in 1854. As editor of this newspaper, he opposed re-opening the African slave trade and supported Sam Houston in his effort to become Governor in the late 1850s. Houston made Cave his Secretary of State in late 1859. An opponent of secession, Cave resigned in early 1861. He did later materially support the Confederacy and served as a Confederate officer with the rank of Major. In 1864 he sold what was later known as the Mrs. Sam Houston House to his friend Margaret Lea Houston.\n\nIn his later years, Cave was an executive with railroad and shipping companies. He helped to promote what eventually became the Houston Ship Channel.\n\nMajor Cave died March 28, 1904, several days after falling from a streetcar, and was buried in Houston in Glenwood Cemetery.\n\nReferences \nHandbook of Texas Online - Eber Worthington Cave\nNational Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database\nFindagrave - Major Eber Worthington Cave\n\n1831 births\n1904 deaths\nAccidental deaths from falls\nAccidental deaths in Texas\nSecretaries of State of Texas",
"Mahlon Jesse Higbee (August 16, 1901 – April 7, 1968) was a Major League Baseball outfielder who started three games for the New York Giants during the last week of the 1922 season.\n\nThe 21-year-old rookie began the season with the Hopkinsville Hoppers of the KITTY League. The Louisville, Kentucky native dominated the Class D circuit, leading the league with a .385 batting average, 161 hits and 101 runs scored. Impressed, the Giants (who had already clinched the National League pennant) brought Higbee to New York, and the kid did not disappoint, with a .400 average (4-for-10), five runs batted in and two runs scored. (Higbee's 5 RBI is the most for any MLB player who appeared in three games or fewer.) All three of Higbee's games were played at the Polo Grounds, and all were Giant victories. Higbee also socked an inside-the-park home run in what would be his final major league at bat. It was the only home run of his Major League career. In the field, he played left field and right field, with two putouts and no errors.\n\nHigbee did not play in the 1922 World Series (a victory for the Giants over the New York Yankees), and was returned to the minors. Higbee did not play at all in 1923, then spent two seasons with the Portsmouth Truckers of the Class B Virginia League, batting .273 in 153 games. After another break in 1926, Higbee returned to pro ball in 1927 with the Evansville Hubs of the Three-I League, retiring after hitting just .188 in sixteen games.\n\nHigbee died at the age of 66 in Depauw, Indiana.\n\nSee also\nList of Major League Baseball players with a home run in their final major league at bat\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBaseball Reference\nRetrosheet\n\nMajor League Baseball outfielders\nBaseball players from Louisville, Kentucky\nNew York Giants (NL) players\n1901 births\n1968 deaths\nMajor League Baseball left fielders\nMajor League Baseball right fielders"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style"
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | How is Swift's musical style described? | 1 | How is Taylor Swift's musical style described? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"Back to the Beat is the ninth album by the turntablist Rob Swift. It was released on February 13, 2003, by On the Strength Records and was produced by Rob Swift.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Going Postal\" \n\"Can't Stop\" \n\"This Is How It Should Be Done\" \n\"This Is How It Was Done\" \n\"Take a Sec\" \n\"Take a Second Look\" \n\"Had to Gatcha\" \n\"Swift James\" \n\"Heads Up\" \n\"Never Dug Disco\" \n\"Don't Blink\" \n\"Soul Vibration\" \n\"Remix Mad Kick\" \n\"Back to the Beat\" \n\"Pink Cookies\" \n\"Next Up\" \n\"Yo I Believe That's Me\" \n\"Stick Up Kids\" \n\"Beat Down and Out\"\n\nReferences\n\nRob Swift albums\n2006 albums",
"The Malagasy palm swift (Cypsiurus gracilis) is a small swift in the family Apodidae. It is very similar to the African palm swift, Cypsiurus parvus, with which it was formerly considered conspecific. It was split based on differences in vocalizations and plumage coloration.\n\nDistribution\nThe Malagasy palm swift is native to Madagascar and Comoros.\n\nReferences\n\nCypsiurus\nBirds of Africa\nBirds described in 1871\nTaxa named by Richard Bowdler Sharpe"
]
|
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"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts"
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | does it mention who specifically influenced her? | 2 | Does the article mention who specifically influenced Taylor Swift? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"According to rabbinical sources, the kallal was a small stone urn kept in the Tabernacle and later in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem which contained the ashes of a red heifer. The Hebrew Bible does not mention any urn in the Numbers 19 account. Kallal is the Aramaic word for a stone vessel or pitcher. Alternatively, kallal is also used for large jars for washing.\n\nMishnah\nThe kalal is mentioned specifically in the Mishnah (Parah 3:3, Eduyot 7:5), Hebrew Rabbinic writings describe vessels hidden under the direction of Jeremiah seven years prior to the destruction of Solomon's Temple, because the dangers of Babylonian conquest were imminent. The vessels that were hidden included the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle fittings, the stone tablets of Moses, the altar (with cherubim) for the daily and seasonal sacrifices, the menorah (candelabra), the kallal and numerous vessels of the priests.\n\nDead Sea Scrolls\nMainstream scholarship does not recognise any mention of the kallal vessels in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However Vendyl Jones of the Vendyl Jones Research Institute interpreted the Copper Scroll in the Archaeological Museum of Jordan to contain mention of sixty-four lost objects buried in the \"Cave of the Column\" mentioned in the Copper Scroll, including a kallal buried behind a pillar, which would be a reference to the kallal of ashes in the Mishnah. Jones died without finding such an urn, and his findings and readings of the Copper Scroll have not been accepted.\n\nReferences\n\nTabernacle and Temples in Jerusalem\nJewish mysticism\nJewish ritual objects\nContainers",
"Bessie Brown Mention (1873–1946) was an American suffragist and activist for women of color and migrant workers. She focused her attention mainly on welfare for migrant workers, and overall helped to monitor the working conditions of African American migrant women in the state of New Jersey. Bessie Brown Mention also took part in numerous organizations to aid in the suffragist movement. These organizations included: the Migrant Welfare Committee, the Colored Women's Republican Club (CWRC), and the New Jersey Colored Republican Women Voters (NJCRWV). She also took part in politics during her career, focusing her work at the Republican National Convention in 1928.\n\nBackground\n\nPersonal life \nBessie Brown Mention was born in 1873. Her mother was from New Jersey and her father was from Virginia. She grew up with three siblings, one sister and two brothers. She married her husband, George M. Mention on March 19, 1896. After getting married, the couple moved to Princeton, New Jersey in 1896. The couple never had children and stayed in New Jersey, where Bessie did most of her work. She died at the age of 73 on May 17, 1946.\n\nCareer \nBessie Brown Mention did a lot of work in welfare, specifically focusing on migrant workers and helping them. She was a member of the Migrant Welfare Committee, which helped monitor the working conditions of African-American migrant women in New Jersey. Overall, she helped a lot of women, especially migrant women, with their working rights and working conditions.\n\nSuffragist movement \nIn addition to her work with migrant workers and African-American women in New Jersey, she was a prevalent piece in the suffragist movement in New Jersey. Most prominently, she was a part of two groups who helped women learn their voting rights and work to help women gain more political rights. \n\nIn early suffragist movements, colored women were not given a voice and so they created their own conferences and suffragist groups. One of these was the Colored Women's Republican Club (CWRC), founded in Denver in 1894. From this, more clubs started popping up around the country and another suffragist, Florence Randolph, started to organize Republican clubs in New Jersey; in 1920, she held the first statewide political conference for black women in 1922. This conference continued and Bessie Brown Mentions was the state chairman for the conference in 1924. Another club that Bessie was very involved in was the New Jersey Colored Republican Women Voters (NJCRWV). Bessie was the president of this club from 1926-1929. In 1929, the group held a conference in Atlantic City, which covered topics from why women should be in politics, how to create more conferences like this, and the 13-15th amendments.\n\nParticipation in politics \nHer prominent work was in the clubs, organizations, and work with migrant workers, but Bessie also had some involvement in politics. She was the alternate delegate from New Jersey at the Republican National Convention in 1928. She also ran for office twice- specifically for a spot on the Republican County Committee in the Sixth District of New Jersey in 1929 and for a Republican seat on the county committee in the Fifth District in 1931. However, she lost both of these races and never took office.\n\nReferences \n\n1873 births\n1946 deaths\nAmerican suffragists\nNew Jersey Republicans\nPeople from Princeton, New Jersey"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | what elements stand out in Swift's musical style? | 3 | What elements stand out in Taylor Swift musical style? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"Robert Christen Swift (born December 3, 1985) is an American professional basketball player who last played for Spanish club Círculo Gijón Baloncesto y Conocimiento of the LEB Plata league. He played in the National Basketball Association for the Seattle SuperSonics / Oklahoma City Thunder from 2004 through 2009, for the Seattle Aviators and Snohomish County Explosion of the National Athletic Basketball League in 2010, and for the Tokyo Apache of the bj League in 2010–11. He stands at and played the center position.\n\nHigh school\nSwift caught the attention of NBA and college scouts while playing for Garces Memorial High School, and then later as the centerpiece of the Bakersfield High School team.\n\nDuring his time at Garces, the small Catholic high school broke into the USA Today top-25 high school basketball team rankings. Between his junior and senior years, Swift transferred from Garces to Highland High School, and then just before his senior year, he transferred to Bakersfield High School. This move provoked a hearing by the California Interscholastic Federation that initially declared Swift ineligible for the 2003–04 season; however, this ruling was later overturned and he played his senior season. He committed to attend the University of Southern California (USC) to play for the USC Trojans men's basketball team on a scholarship.\n\nNational Basketball Association\nSwift was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round with the twelfth overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft. Swift bypassed college and opted for the NBA, turning down his commitment to play for USC.\n\nIn his first season with the Sonics, Swift played in 16 games, averaging 4.5 minutes, 0.9 points, 0.4 rebounds, and 0.4 blocks per game. In his second season, under the direction of coach Bob Hill, he started 20 out of 47 games, averaging 21 minutes, 6.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game.\n\nIn 2006, the Sonics anticipated that Swift would become their starting center. Swift was awarded the starting job at center but he ruptured the anterior crucial ligament in his right knee after playing just over one minute in a preseason game vs the Sacramento Kings. The resulting injury occurred when he twisted his right knee when he fell and went out of bounds awkwardly in front of the Seattle bench. Swift suffered another injury to his right knee in February 2008, a torn lateral meniscus.\n\nOn December 22, 2009, the Oklahoma City Thunder renounced the rights to Swift.\n\nD-League and Japan\nIn 2009, Swift joined the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA D-League. However, he left the team for personal reasons after appearing in two games. He was overweight and experienced a decrease in mobility.\n\nDuring the 2010–11 season, Swift played for Tokyo Apache with his former head coach in Seattle, Bob Hill. Swift played well, receiving interest from the NBA's Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the Apache ended their season prematurely and disbanded. Swift tried out for the Portland Trail Blazers in April 2011, but was not offered a contract.\n\nSpain\nOn 12 February 2018, Swift returned to play basketball after agreeing a two-year contract with Spanish fifth tier club Círculo Gijón.\n\nIn his second season in Spain, the club achieved a vacant place in the professional third-tier league, LEB Plata. He left the team after the end of the season averaging 9.1 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. However, Swift came back to Círculo Gijón on 29 December 2019.\n\nPersonal life\nRobert's father, Bruce, was unable to work for two years due to a car accident that occurred while Robert was a child. He filed for bankruptcy twice: in 1999 and 2003. Robert's mother, Rhonda, was diagnosed with cancer and had multiple surgeries to remove it. The Swifts dealt with food insecurity.\n\nIn 2009, Swift's girlfriend became pregnant. In June 2011, Swift was arrested for driving under the influence. He was found guilty of reckless driving.\n\nIn 2013, Swift refused to vacate his foreclosed home, which had been bought by a new owner. The new owner bought the house in Sammamish, Washington, in January 2013 for half the price Swift paid in 2006. Swift eventually left the home, which was reportedly riddled with animal feces, guns, bullets, beer bottles, and garbage. Observers also noted old letters from some of the top college basketball programs in the country trying to recruit Swift, before he went straight to the NBA from high school.\n\nIn October 2014, police raided the house of Trygve Bjorkstam, an alleged heroin and methamphetamine dealer, who had a collection of 18 guns. They found Swift living in the home, and in possession of a sawed-off shotgun. In November 2014, police charged Swift with unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun.\n\nOn January 8, 2015, Swift was arrested by police for involvement in an armed home invasion attempt. Swift claimed he was high on drugs at the time of the incident.\n\nNBA career statistics\n\nRegular season \n\n|-\n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| \n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| Seattle\n| 16 || 0 || 4.5 || .455 || .000 || .556 || .3 || .1 || .1 || .4 || 1.0\n|-\n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| \n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| Seattle\n| 47 || 20 || 21.0 || .515 || .000 || .582 || 5.6 || .2 || .3 || 1.2 || 6.4\n|-\n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| \n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| Seattle\n| 8 || 4 || 12.3 || .353 || .000 || 1.000 || 2.3 || .1 || .6 || .8 || 2.0\n|-\n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| \n| style=\"text-align:left;\"| Oklahoma City\n| 26 || 10 || 13.2 || .521 || .000 || .750 || 3.4 || .3 || .2 || .7 || 3.3\n|- class=\"sortbottom\"\n| style=\"text-align:center;\" colspan=\"2\"| Career\n| 97 || 34 || 15.5 || .506 || .000 || .610 || 4.0 || .2 || .3 || .9 || 4.3\n\nSee also\nList of oldest and youngest National Basketball Association players\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Chris Ballard: Out From The Darkness: Robert Swift's road from NBA lottery pick to drug addict to... Sports Illustrated, 21 September 2016.\n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nAmerican expatriate basketball people in Japan\nAmerican expatriate basketball people in Spain\nAmerican men's basketball players\nAmerican people of Okinawan descent\nAmerican sportspeople of Japanese descent\nBakersfield Jam players\nBasketball players from Bakersfield, California\nCenters (basketball)\nCírculo Gijón players\nMcDonald's High School All-Americans\nNational Basketball Association high school draftees\nOklahoma City Thunder players\nParade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)\nSeattle SuperSonics draft picks\nSeattle SuperSonics players\nTokyo Apache players",
"The Taylor Swift sexual assault trial was a legal case held in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The trial involved David Mueller, a former DJ, filing for defamation against singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. He claimed she had him wrongfully terminated following an incident at a 2013 meet-and-greet. Swift then counter-sued Mueller for battery and sexual assault, seeking a symbolic $1 in damages. The trial lasted one week, beginning on August 7, 2017, with both Mueller and Swift appearing in court. It concluded on the evening of August 14, 2017, with the jury ruling in Swift's favor and ordering Mueller to pay her $1.\n\nThe trial was subject to significant media attention, due to Swift's status as a high profile celebrity. News and media outlets reported on the details of the case and the public's reaction daily. In a statement released by Swift following the trial, she revealed her reasoning for counter-suing was to empower others if they have been the victims of assault. In the statement, she also pledged to donate to organisations that help fund legal costs of sexual assault victims who choose to defend themselves.\n\nBackground\n\nIncident \n\nOn June 2, 2013, while on her third concert tour, Swift attended a pre-show meet-and-greet organised by KYGO radio before one of her concerts at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. Numerous fans and station employees were present at the event, where guests were invited to meet with Swift before taking photos with her. At the event, Swift posed for a photo with David Mueller, a radio employee at the time, and his then-girlfriend Shannon Melcher, also an employee of the station. Swift alleged that during the photograph, Mueller reached under her skirt and grabbed her buttock. Immediately following the incident, once Mueller and Melcher had exited the room, Swift reported it to her mother, tour manager, the photographer and members of her security team.\n\nFollowing the report, Swift's security team met with Mueller backstage and accused him of touching her inappropriately, which resulted in him being escorted from the concert. The incident was also reported to KYGO radio and Mueller was terminated shortly after they conducted their own investigation into the event.\n\nLawsuit \n\nIn September 2015, Mueller sued Swift for defamation, claiming that he had never touched Swift under her skirt. He alleged that as a result of the false claims he had wrongfully lost his job, his public image had been tarnished and he had been unjustifiably banned from any of Swift's future concerts. His lawsuit stated:\n\n\"The contention that Mr. Mueller lifted up Ms. Swift's skirt and grabbed her bottom, while standing with his girlfriend, in front of Ms. Swift's photographer and Ms. Swift's highly trained security personnel, during a company sponsored, VIP, backstage meet-and-greet, is nonsense, particularly given that Ms. Swift's skirt is in place and is not being lifted by Mr. Mueller's hand in the photograph\".\n\nMueller sought approximately $3 million in lost income, stating he was earning approximately $150,000 per year at KYGO and radio careers \"can span for over 20 years\". In his lawsuit, he acknowledged that Swift had been assaulted but instead blamed KYGO employee Eddie Haskell, claiming it was a case of mistaken identity on behalf of Swift and her team. His suit also named Frank Bell, the promotions director of KYGO radio, and Swift's mother Andrea.\n\nThe following month Swift filed a counter suit for battery and assault. In the suit she expressed that she was completely aware of who had assaulted her, naming Mueller as the individual who deliberately groped her buttock, inappropriately, and without her permission. The suit also stated that before starting at KYGO, Mueller had not worked on the radio since May 2006 and prior to this he had been dismissed twice from radio positions. In her suit Swift demanded a jury trial and expressed that any money she won from the trial would be donated to charity organisations who protect women from sexual assault and other violent acts.\n\nOn July 26, 2016, Swift gave her deposition. She was granted her request that the meet-and-greet photo of her and Mueller from 2013 be not made publicly available, with the judge sealing the documents. The image in question was later leaked in November 2016 by tabloid website TMZ. In her deposition Swift detailed her recount of the event claiming Mueller intentionally lifted his hand up her dress and groped her buttock. Swift described knowing it was no accident when she attempted to hustle away and his hand was still there, stating she had \"never been so sure of anything\" in her life.\n\nOn May 31, 2017, Judge William Martinez ruled that a jury would decide the outcome of the trial.\n\nNearly two months later, on July 19, 2017, Mueller was sanctioned by Judge Martinez for destroying key evidence. In his deposition he revealed he only provided edited down audio files of his two-hour meeting with Call, which he had recorded on his phone. He claimed the full files had been damaged when he spilled coffee over his laptop keyboard and lost or thrown out other electronic devices.\n\nTrial \nThe trial began on Monday, August 7, 2017, with both Mueller, Swift and their respective legal teams present. On this day potential jurors were questioned regarding their objectivity towards the case. Candidates were asked about whether they were fans of either Swift or Mueller's music. Queries regarding Swift asked candidates whether they listened to her music, had attended her concerts, watched her videos and purchased an album of hers. Questions also examined whether or not jurors had ever been groped inappropriately or had ever been accused of touching someone else without their permission. Out of 60 a total of eight jurors were chosen, six women and two men.\n\nThe following day, both Swift and Mueller's lawyers gave their opening statements. Douglas Baldridge, Swift's attorney, led by stating Swift was \"taking a stand for all women\" and described the incident as assault in the workplace. Babe McFarland, Mueller's attorney followed by claiming Mueller had not touched Swift inappropriately and that the incident had cost Mueller \"[his] dream job\". Following the opening statements Mueller gave his testimony, stating his hand came into contact with a part of her body that seemed to be her ribs.\n\nOn August 9, 2017, Swift's mother, Andrea, took to the stand to detail her recollection of the incident. She described how she was sickened after being told of what had happened and when she saw the photo she could immediately tell her daughter was uncomfortable.\n\nThe following day Swift herself took to the stand, her mother was unable to be present in court during her testimony. She testified for almost an hour describing how it was a \"definite\" and \"very long\" grab and spoke of her monotone response to Mueller and his girlfriend following the photo. During her testimony, Swift was questioned about her feelings towards discovering Mueller had lost his job, to which she said it did not impact her.\n\nIn the following days, numerous witnesses testified. On Thursday, August 11, Stephanie Simbeck, Swift's photographer, took to the stand to recount what she had seen when taking the photo. The next day, Greg Dent, Swift's former body guard also testified. This was followed by Mueller's ex-girlfriend Shannon who said she had not been watching the placement of Mueller's hands and described the photo as fast-paced. Ryan Kliesch, Mueller's KYGO 98.5 co-host, testified that he initially thought the allegations were a joke because he had not known of Mueller to be disrespectful towards women.\n\nOn Friday, August 12, Judge Martinez dismissed Mueller's $3 million case against Swift citing insufficient evidence that Swift had gotten him fired.\n\nThe trial concluded on August 14, 2017. Both legal teams gave their closing statements before the jury deliberated for hours. Ultimately the jury ruled that Mueller had assaulted Swift at the 2013 meet-and-greet, awarding her $1. The jury also decided that Andrea Swift and Frank Bell had no impact on Mueller's termination.\n\nPublic response \nIn the two-year lead up to the trial numerous news agencies wrote articles about the incident, fueling public interest. Following the news of the legal case many members of the public took to social media to poke fun at the incident.\n\nDuring the trial, employees of Craftsy, a Denver based crafting and design website located directly opposite the courtrooms, began to place post-it notes in the windows of their offices. The notes spelled out lyrics and song names from Swift's discography including \"Fearless\", \"I Knew You Were Trouble\" (stylized in sentence case) and \"Shake It Off\" as signs of encouragement and support for the singer during her court appearances.\n\nDuring Swift's Tampa Bay show of her Reputation Stadium Tour on August 14, 2018, the one year anniversary of the trial, fans in the audience held up $1 bills in her honour as a symbol of support for the her. Swift gave a speech about the victims of sexual assault before continuing with the tour set list, playing a mash up of \"New Year's Day\" and \"Long Live\".\n\nIn Swift's speech she stated \"A year ago I was not playing in a sold out stadium in Tampa, I was in a courtroom in Denver, Colorado. This is the day the jury sided in my favor and said that they believed me\". She continued to speak about belief of victims, apologizing to anyone who had not been believed or were too frightened to speak up for fear of not being believed. She closed her speech by thanking those who had supported her in what was a \"really horrible part of [her] life\" and contemplating where her life would have been had people not believed her.\n\nAftermath \n\nIn December 2017, Swift was named as a \"Silence Breaker\" in Time magazine's Person of the Year issue. In the magazine, Swift gave her first recount of the assault and trial, detailing how it felt to testify and advice she would offer to fans. She also revealed that as of that date she had still not been paid the symbolic dollar she had won.\n\nSwift also recalled that it was the most number of times the term \"ass\" had been spoken in Colorado Federal Court.\n\nIt has also been widely speculated that Swift made a reference to her assault trial in her \"Look What You Made Me Do\" music video, but this was never confirmed by Swift herself.\n\nIn the April 2019 issue of Elle, Swift once again spoke of her trial. In the piece, titled \"30 things I learned before I turned 30\", Swift listed her opinion that she believes victims in cases of sexual assault as her thirteenth lesson. She credited this lesson to her own trial experience, drawing on what she described as the stigma many women feel when speaking up about assault.\n\nFollowing the outcome of the trial, Mueller struggled for months to find a job in radio. In early 2018 he was eventually hired by KIX-92.7 hosting a morning show in Mississippi, presenting under the pseudonym Stonewall Jackson.\n\nReferences \n\n2017 in law\nSexual harassment in the United States\nSexual assault trial"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\"."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | what instruments does Swift use? | 4 | What instruments does Taylor Swift use? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"Tom Swift and His War Tank, Or, Doing His Bit for Uncle Sam, is Volume 21 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.\n\nPlot summary\n\nWhen the United States joins in The Great War, it seems that everyone has war fever. A military base close to Shopton is training soldiers in the art of trench warfare, while pilots are learning aerial combat. Ned Newton has quit his job to sell liberty bonds full-time. Many of the young men have enlisted, or even hoping for the draft. Everyone seems to be doing their bit, except for Tom Swift, which raises many concerns that Tom is a slacker.\n\nTom does not let his country down; the reason he appears to be idle is that he has secretly been developing a new tank for use in combat. The project is so secret that Tom does not even let his close friends know, which causes the concerns being raised about Tom's patriotism. Even though the development is in secret, that does not stop German nationals from trying to steal his tank.\n\nInventions & Innovation\n\nTanks are a new wartime technology, and the British Army has deployed them for use on the western front. Tom's tank is bigger, and able to travel at twice the speed of current models, with a max of . At the expense of limited firepower with four unspecified machine guns, the tank has heavier armor plating than the British tanks.\n\nTom further refines the tank with an innovative built-in bridging mechanism, which will allow the tank to roll over wider trenches than the existing models.\n\nSee also\n\nTom Swift and His Electric Rifle, which gave its name to the word \"taser\"—Tom A Swift's Electric Rifle\n\nExternal links\n Tom Swift and His War Tank e-text at Project Gutenberg\n \n\n1918 American novels\nTom Swift\nAmerican young adult novels",
"Richard Swift (March 16, 1977 – July 3, 2018), born Ricardo Ochoa, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and short-film maker. He was the founder, owner, and recording engineer of National Freedom, a recording studio located in Oregon, and worked as producer, collaborator, muse and influencer for acts including The Shins, Damien Jurado, David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion), Foxygen, Jessie Baylin, Nathaniel Rateliff, Lucius, Lonnie Holley, The Mynabirds, Wake Owl, Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Gardens & Villa, Cayucas, Fleet Foxes, Mango Safari and Guster. Swift was a former member of indie rock band The Shins and The Arcs. He was also a part of The Black Keys' live band during their 2014–2015 tour, performing as their touring bassist and backing singer.\n\nEarly life \nBorn in California on March 16, 1977 with the name Ricardo Ochoa, into a musical Quaker family, Swift started performing and singing in churches at an early age. In his youth, his family moved frequently, spending time in rural locations in Minnesota, Utah, and Oregon. As a teenager, he worked at a farm near International Falls, Minnesota.\n\nCareer\n\nSolo \nRicardo \"Dicky\" Ochoa released his first solo album under the name Dicky Ochoa on Metro One Recordings in 2000. While in 2002 released an album called Company with Frank Lenz and Elijah Thomson. Also in 2002 he was a musician on the Promise Keepers Live Worship album. In 2001, Swift moved to Southern California to pursue his solo recording career. That same year, he recorded Walking Without Effort, an initially unreleased album with drummer and producer Frank Lenz. He recorded much of his early music on a four-track cassette recorder. From 2002 to 2005, he released four small pressings of \"properly manufactured\" 7\" vinyl singles via Velvet Blue Music. Swift also released The Novelist in 2003 and Walking Without Effort (recorded in 2001) in 2005 and combined the two albums to create the double-disc The Richard Swift Collection Vol. 1 released by Leftwing Recordings in August 2004. In December 2003, American webzine Somewhere Cold voted The Novelist EP of the Year on their 2003 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame list, while a year later, in December 2004, they ranked The Richard Swift Collection Vol. 1 No. 5 on their 2004 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame list.\n\nHe signed to indie label Secretly Canadian, who then re-released the Collection in 2005. In 2007, Secretly Canadian and Polydor issued Swift's proper follow-up album, Dressed Up For the Letdown. Later in the year Swift met Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy during a taping of the BBC program Later...with Jools Holland. Tweedy asked Swift to support Wilco on their Sky Blue Sky US tour. During the tour Tweedy invited Swift to record at their Loft studios in Chicago.\n\nIn October 2007, Swift started his fourth album at the Wilco Loft studios. In April 2008, Secretly Canadian released a double EP named Richard Swift As Onasis. In August 2008, Swift released an EP entitled Ground Trouble Jaw as a free digital download. In April 2009, Secretly Canadian released The Atlantic Ocean. Co-produced by Mark Ronson, the album featured special guests such as Pat Sansone, Casey Foubert (Sufjan Stevens), Sean Lennon, and Ryan Adams. In 2011, he released another solo EP entitled Walt Wolfman.\n\nProducer and back-up artist \nIn addition to the music recorded under his own name and producing work, he was also briefly a keyboardist in the band Starflyer 59 in 2002 and 2003, playing live shows and contributing to their 2003 album Old. He also fronted his own electronic music side-project, Instruments of Science and Technology. In December 2005, Somewhere Cold again listed Swift in their year-end list, ranking Instruments of Science and Technology No. 9 on their 2005 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame list. \n Swift also played on multiple Michael Knott albums, CUSH, Kat Jones, Pony Express, Damien Jurado, and worked with Frank Lenz on Frank's solo material. \nIn a 2007 interview, Swift commented on his techniques as a producer and engineer, stating \"Most of my recording techniques come from looking at photos on the inside of Sly & The Family Stone or Beatles LPs, or from watching Sympathy for the Devil and thinking, 'Oh! That's where they put the mic!'\" Swift is known to often provide hefty contributions as a multi-instrumentalist to the albums he produces. In 2009, he began spending more time working with other artists as producer and band member. May 2010 saw the release of fellow Secretly Canadian recording artist Damien Jurado's record Saint Bartlett. In 2010, Swift also produced The Mynabirds' What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood and co-produced Laetitia Sadier's album The Trip. He joined The Shins in 2011 and began touring with The Black Keys as their bassist in 2014. In 2015, he produced the self-titled album for Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats.\n\nPersonal life and death \nSwift lived in Cottage Grove, Oregon, where he met his wife, Shealynn. They had three children.\n\nOn June 19, 2018, Pitchfork reported that Swift had been hospitalized in Tacoma, Washington, recovering from an undisclosed \"life-threatening condition\" and that a GoFundMe had been set up to help cover his medical expenses. He died on July 3, 2018 in Tacoma. Six days later, Swift's family released a statement confirming that he had suffered from alcohol addiction throughout his life, and that his death was ultimately caused by related \"complications from hepatitis, as well as liver and kidney distress.\"\n\nDiscography\n\nAs a solo artist\n\nAlbums \nThe Novelist – US (2003)\nWalking Without Effort – US (recorded in 2001, released 2005)\nDressed Up for the Letdown – US & UK (Secretly Canadian and Polydor, 2007)\nMusic From the Films of R/Swift – Released under the name Instruments of Science & Technology – US (Secretly Canadian2008)\nRichard Swift As Onasis – US (Secretly Canadian, 2008)\nThe Atlantic Ocean (Secretly Canadian, 2009)\nLibrary Catalog Music Series, Vol. 7: Music for Paradise Armor – Released under the name Instruments of Science & Technology (Asthmatic Kitty, 2010)\nThe Hex (Secretly Canadian, 2018)\n\nEPs and singles \nBuildings in America (2004)\nYou're Lying (2004)\nP.S. It All Falls Down (2005)\nNothing to Do with Foxy Boxing (2005)\nBeautifulheart (2006)\nKisses for the Misses (single, 2007)\nThe Songs of National Freedom (single, 2007)\nGround Trouble Jaw (2008)\nLady Luck (single, 2009)\nThe Atlantic Ocean (2009)\n\nWalt Wolfman (2011)\nKensington (2014)\n\nBox-sets \n The Richard Swift Collection, Volume 1: The Novelist / Walking Without Effort – US (2005)\n\nAs producer \nThe Mynabirds – What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood (2010), Generals (album) (2012)\nFoxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic (2013)\nPure Bathing Culture – Moon Tides (2013)\nNathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats (2015), Tearing at the Seams (2018)\nDamien Jurado – Saint Bartlett (2010), Maraqopa (2012), Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son (2014), Visions of Us on the Land (2016)\nGuster – Evermotion (2015)\nDavid Bazan – Care (2017)\nBorn Ruffians – Uncle, Duke & The Chief (2018)\nMatt Hopper – Jersey Finger (2010)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nPlace of birth missing\n1977 births\n2018 deaths\n21st-century American musicians\nThe Shins members\nAmerican rock keyboardists\nDeaths from hepatitis\nStarflyer 59 members\nThe Arcs members\nSecretly Canadian artists\nPolydor Records artists\nSinger-songwriters from California"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar"
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | is there more discussion about her vocal style? | 5 | is there more discussion about Taylor Swift's vocal style? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"\"Sexy baby voice\" is an English language speech pattern or sociolect, first described by U.S. media in 2013, in which young women affect the high-pitched voice of pre-pubescent girls. Actress Lake Bell popularized the term with her 2013 film In a World..., and subsequently gave various interviews on the speech pattern.\n\nFeatures\nThe speech patterns at issue are described as sounding \"like Minnie Mouse on helium\", or a \"mousy squeak [with a] handful of gravel tossed across the very top of the register\". Actress Lake Bell described the style as an amalgamation of \"valley-girl voice\" (characterized by \"upspeak\" and vocal fry) and high pitch.\n\nControversy\n\"Sexy baby voice\" is controversial in discussions about gender equality and related issues. Bell and others have argued that the use of \"sexy baby voice\" demeans the speaker, who appears as a \"submissive 12-year-old trying to be a sex object\", or that its use in film and television exploits contemporary culture's \"fetish for adult sexuality wrapped in adolescent packages\".\n\nOthers questioned the purpose of critiquing the speech pattern, asserting that \"picking at the vocal quirks of your own gender is just as much of a nuisance as harping on the bodies that belong to them\". Phonetician Mark Liberman wrote that it was not clear that the discussion about \"sexy baby voice\" referred to a specific speech pattern rather than just \"a long list of things about various female-associated vocal features that people don't like\". He also noted previous discussions about similar female speech patterns in earlier decades, such as a controversy about \"uptalk\" in the 1990s.\n\nSee also\nBreathy voice\nBetty Boop\n\"Happy Birthday, Mr. President\"\nVocal fry\nBurikko\nKawaii\nMoe (slang)\n\nReferences\n\nForms of English\nSociolinguistics\nFeminism and society\nPhonetics",
"Realivox is a voice synthesizer.\n\nAbout\nThe software allows for delicate editing and adjustment of sounds. The software comes in two forms, although both aim to achieve similar goals. It is also able to work with Kontakt.\n\nProducts\nRealivox Ladies: This is a multi-pack version with 5 female vocals each with a different vocal style- Cheryl (airy vocal designed for film cues), Teresa (soprano opera singer), Patty (pop singer and ethnic music), Julie (full range) and Toni (RnB). Unlike Blue, Ladies is focused on simple 32 key sound samples such as \"ah\". Due to every instance using a voice selection option, it is possible to build up the vocals to create a choir of sounds using the five vocals. The package comes as a \"lite\" or \"full\" version, with the difference being that Teresa is absent in the lite version. The package has also been updated to version 2 since original release. The updated version contains double the amount of articulations as the original. An upgrade was offered to those who bought the first version free. The update was done with fresh recordings from the original singers.\nRealivox - Blue: This is a classical style singer pack with a solo female vocalist. In contrast to the \"Realivox Ladies\" product, Blue is a more complex package with advanced features. Her vocal is complex with 12,000 samples with 32 samples per sound covering two and a half octaves of singing vocal result, while closing consonants have 192 samples for certain sounds such as \"t\". All six vowels contain legato results, this is also included for humming sounds sound as \"mm\". She also contains polyphonic legato capabilities. She is designed to be a go-between vocal and has realistic tones. The samples are combined to build words, with the transition between the sounds being almost invisible. She was released on May 26, 2014.\n\nReception\nRichard Leiter, at Keyboard magazine, commented that both products give an uncanny realistic result that had a \"effortless\" learning curve. He, however, commented that singers like Adele need not worry about the package's results. He felt the product was best suited for solo lines and backup singers, offering a product at the price that would cost more to do the same effort with real singers for a single vocal recording session.\n\nReferences\n\nSpeech synthesis software\nSinging software synthesizers"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar",
"is there more discussion about her vocal style?",
"The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are \"fine\", but they do not match those of her peers."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | what does it mean that they don't match those of her peers? | 6 | What does The Hollywood Reporter mean that Taylor Swift's vocals does not match Swifts peers? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"When AIDS Was Funny is a 2015 short documentary film by Scott Calonico. The film plays controversial audio of the White House's acting press spokesman, Larry Speakes, responding to questions on the escalating AIDS epidemic by journalist Lester Kinsolving. The audio recordings are from several of the Reagan administration's press conferences in the 1980s. The audio is juxtaposed with images of AIDS patients at Seattle's Bailey-Boushay House in the 1990s.\n\n1982 exchange\nThe controversial dismissal of the growing AIDS epidemic is heard in the film through a series of press conferences in the 1980s, such as this 1982 exchange between Speakes and Kinsolving:\nKINSOLVING: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that A-I-D-S is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?\n\nSPEAKES: What’s A-I-D-S?\n\nKINSOLVING: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?\n\nSPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)\n\nKINSOLVING: No, I don’t.\n\nSPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question.\n\nKINSOLVING: Well, I just wondered, does the President—\n\nSPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)\n\nKINSOLVING: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?\n\nSPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.\n\nKINSOLVING: Does the President, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?\n\nSPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there’s been any—\n\nKINSOLVING: Nobody knows?\n\nSPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.\n\nKINSOLVING: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—\n\nSPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from A-I-D-S or whatever it is.\n\nKINSOLVING: The President doesn’t have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?\n\nSPEAKES: No, I didn’t say that.\n\nKINSOLVING: Didn’t say that?\n\nSPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn’t you stay there? (Laughter.)\n\nKINSOLVING: Because I love you, Larry, that’s why. (Laughter.)\n\nSPEAKES: Oh, I see. Just don’t put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)\n\nKINSOLVING: Oh, I retract that.\n\nSPEAKES: I hope so.\n\nReferences",
"Rosalind Mary Grender, Baroness Grender (born 19 August 1962), known as Olly Grender, is a former Head of Communications for the Liberal Democrats and a party life peer.\n\nEducation\nGrender was educated at Putney High School,\nan independent day school for girls in Putney in south west London, followed by Kingston College of Further Education in Kingston-upon-Thames, also in south west London, and Staffordshire University.\n\nLife and career\nIn the 1980s, Grender was a member of the National League of Young Liberals' Green Guard. After working as a researcher for the Liberal Democrats, Grender became a speech-writer to Paddy Ashdown in the late 1980s, being awarded a MBE in the 1996 Birthday Honours list. She was Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats from June 1990 to June 1995 and Director of Communications for Shelter from June 1995 to October 1999, before joining LLM Communications in 2000. Grender sometimes appears on British television, espousing Liberal Democrat points of view.\n\nGrender appeared on Question Time on 21 November 2013, as one of an unusually small panel of three. Over the course of a year, up to September 2011, Grender blogged for the New Statesman magazine.\n\nAt the beginning of August 2013, it was announced that Grender was to become a Liberal Democrat life peer, and would be a working member of the House of Lords. Her peerage was created on 4 September 2013 under the title Baroness Grender, of Kingston upon Thames in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. She delivered her maiden speech on 28 November 2013.\n\nDiscussing the diversity of the House of Lords in an interview with Paul Waugh, published in The House Magazine in October 2012, Grender stated: \"What you don’t get is a hairdresser, what you don’t get is a bus driver. And why don’t you get those people? Because it’s unaffordable for most people to do this kind of thing unless you are relying on a partner.\" The comment attracted adverse media comment from some commentators, though a number of others stated that they believed the comment had been taken out of context, and defended Grender.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAlumni of Staffordshire University\nLiberal Democrats (UK) officials\nLife peers created by Elizabeth II\nFemale life peers\nLiberal Democrats (UK) life peers\nBritish public relations people\nMembers of the Order of the British Empire\nPeople educated at Putney High School\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\n1962 births"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar",
"is there more discussion about her vocal style?",
"The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are \"fine\", but they do not match those of her peers.",
"what does it mean that they don't match those of her peers?",
"described Swift's vocals as \"flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt\". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | Has there been any other criticisms? | 7 | Besides her live vocals, has there been any other criticisms of Taylor Swift? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"The terms horse race and handicapping the horse race, have been used to describe media coverage of elections. The terms refer to any news story or article whose main focus is describing how a particular candidate or candidates are faring during the election, in other words, trying to predict the outcome. This category includes polls. There is a thin line between a horse race news story and a non horse race news story. For example, an article simply describing a candidate's economic policy is a non horse race article, but an article which is about how certain groups of voters are angry at a candidate's economic policy is a horse race article.\n\nCriticisms of horse race coverage\nCritics of the news media say that the vast majority of all articles during a political election are horse race style. Different criticisms have been raised as to why that is bad:\n\nIt is argued that news sources tend to use horse race journalism as a ploy to lure in audiences and tighten polls during election cycles by discrediting candidates favored to win and hyping underdogs\nHorse race coverage is considered by some to cause voters to change their actual perceptions on a candidate in a sort of vicious cycle. For example, a poll showing a third party candidate having a low support percentage may discourage other people from voting for that person so as to avoid the spoiler effect. That effect is magnified if a particular media outlet has a biased point of view that they want to get across. One way that a biased news outlet would use this technique is similar to the \"some say\" rhetorical device, namely by making uncited references to constituent outrage or support of some particular issue.\nSome say that horse race coverage destroys coverage of the issues, because often, an article is mostly about how groups reacted to a speech or other presentation of a candidate on an issue and has little room to discuss the candidate's point of view itself.\nA horse race style of article allows for the use of weasel words: a subtle way of editorializing on the part of the author by focusing on the criticisms or praise of an anonymous or small group of voters.\nIt is argued that horse race coverage distracts voters from issues surrounding candidates by emphasizing poll results, regardless of how reliable the polls may be.\n\nSee also\nPollster\nSwingometer\n\nExternal links\n Political Glossary: Horse Race\nIn Defense of (the Right Kind of) Horse Race Journalism\nHyping The Horse Race\n\nPolitical terminology\nJournalism terminology",
"The Motorola i886 is the first ever qwerty slider style cellular telephone designed for use with iDEN Networks. It was released for Nextel on January 9, 2011.\n\nBackground\nLike the Motorola i850, i760, and even the i920/i930, the i886 supports both iDEN 800mhz and 900mhz bands. The iDEN 900 band is also supported pending Sprint's petition to move all iDEN spectrum away from the 800 band for public safety workers to utilize it.\n\nUnlike the i1, the i886 does not operate under Android but has some elements of the Android OS. While this is the case, it utilizes Bluetooth2.1 support with OBEX and hands-free earpiece compliance.\n\nThe i886 adds selective dynamic group call, MP3 support, MIDI/WAV support, and TransFlash/Micro SD support for cards up to 32 GB-to-date. The i886 also features a digital camera, but the resolution has been increased to 2 megapixels, and video recording.\n\nThe i885 is the first phone to feature mo-sms on Sprint Nextel's iDEN network.\n\nThere are currently no criticisms as of this time, neither there are any opportunities to find any for the timebeing.\n\nRegulatory information\n\nSee also\nMotorola iDEN phone models\nSprint Nextel\n\nExternal links\n\nMotorola i886 Manual in PDF Format\nMotorola i886 Specs\n\nI886\nIDEN mobile phones\nMobile phones introduced in 2011"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar",
"is there more discussion about her vocal style?",
"The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are \"fine\", but they do not match those of her peers.",
"what does it mean that they don't match those of her peers?",
"described Swift's vocals as \"flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt\". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune.",
"Has there been any other criticisms?",
"writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is \"not the best technical singer\", but described her as the \"best communicator that we've got\"."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | What else stands out in this section about her musical style? | 8 | Besides The Tennessean conceding that Swift is not the best singer, what else stands out about Taylor Swift musical style? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
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Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"Else Alfelt (16 September 1910 – 9 August 1974) was a Danish artist who specialized in abstract paintings. She was one of two female members of the CoBrA movement. She was married to Carl-Henning Pedersen, another prominent CoBrA member.\n\nEarly life and education\nAlfelt was born in Copenhagen to the parents Carl Valdemar Ahlefeldt (1882–1954) and Edith Alexandra Regine Julie Thomsen (1893–1938). She began to paint in an early age and remained self-taught as an artist. When her parents divorced while Else was very young, she was sent away to an orphanage by her father’s new wife. Alfelt learned to paint around age 12 by trying to capture staff and other children at the orphanage.\n\nAt age 15, Alfelt attended the Technical School in Copenhagen for two years. Her training worked to prepare her to apply to the Art Academy in Copenhagen where she was ultimately turned down. According to her museum website, “the rejection was made on the grounds that she already possessed the necessary painting skills.”\nIn 1933, when Alfelt was 23 years old, she attended the International Folk High School in Elsinore. There, she met her future husband Carl-Henning Pederson. They married very quickly, and their daughter Vibeke Alfelt was born in 1934. From about 1934 to 1937, the couple struggled financially but felt inspired still, so they would paint over used canvases in order to continue their craft. This was how Pederson allegedly began painting, by being given a used canvas from his wife and instructed to make it his own.\n\nCareer\n\nAhlefeldt submitted her work to the annual Autumn Salon of Danish artists (Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling) from 1929, but her work was not accepted until 1936, when she exhibited two naturalistic portraits. Soon after this, Alfelt's painting style shifted to a completely abstract idiom of meditative and colorful prismatic compositions.\n\nAlfelt was involved with the major avant-garde art movements in Denmark from the 1930s through the 1950s. She took part in Linien (The Line, 1934-1939), the artists' collective and art journal that was the first conduit of French Surrealism to Denmark. Under the German occupation of Denmark during World War Two, Alfelt was an integral component of Helhesten (The Hell-Horse, 1941-1944), the artists' group and art journal co-founded by Asger Jorn as a harbinger of experimental art and implicit cultural-political resistance. She was also an important member of CoBrA (1948-1951) after the war.\n\nAlfelt's work explored motifs such as spirals, mountains, and spheres, which she linked to expressions of \"inner space\". Alfelt was directly inspired by nature, specifically mountains, which she sought out on her many travels, such as her trip to Lapland 1945 and Japan in 1967. In addition to paintings she also produced several mosaics.\n\nShe was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1961.\n\nNotable artworks\n\nPosthumous Exhibitions \n“Else Alfelt- The Flower of the Universe” – Carl Henning Pederson og Else Alfelts Museum; 2018.\n\nAlfelt was inspired by travels to Japan to incorporate Zen Buddhism into her artistic style, resulting in 100 meditative paintings all named “Flower of the Universe.” These paintings were all made from Since she created them while traveling to Japan, each piece was composed on paper since it was lightweight and easy to transport.\n\n“Abstract Women- Else Alfelt and Marianne Grønnow” – Carl Henning Pederson og Else Alfelts museum; March 2015-August 2015.\nAbstract women documents two Danish abstract female painters who have gone overlooked by history, and overshadowed by their husbands’ works. While the two artists vary greatly in style and technique, the CHPEA museum brings them together for this exhibition to bring attention to the ways their art challenges established societal norms.\n\nLegacy\n'Carl Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum' outside Herning. Else Alfelts Vej in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen is named after her. In September 2010, the museum displayed a large-scale exhibition called “Else Alfelt – The Aesthetics of Emptiness.” The exhibition was shown for five months to celebrate what would have been Alfelt’s 100th birthday. The museum page description of the event calls her “one of the most significant women artists in Danish modernism.”\n\nSee also\nList of Danish painters\nList of Danish women artists\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n'Carl Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum' - Else Alfelt \nElse Alfelt in Kunstindeks Danmark \n\n1910 births\n1974 deaths\n20th-century Danish painters\n20th-century Danish women artists\nAbstract painters\nArtists from Copenhagen\nDanish watercolourists\nDanish women painters\nRecipients of the Thorvaldsen Medal\nWomen watercolorists",
"The Princess Saves Herself in This One is the debut collection of poetry by American poet Amanda Lovelace, first self-published in 2016 through CreateSpace and then published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in 2017. Its narrative arc follows a princess who is learning to become her own savior; the semi-autobiographical book's author is the princess. It is the first installment in a series called Women Are Some Kind of Magic, which focuses on the resilience of women. The book won the Goodreads Choice Award for poetry in 2016.\n\nSections\nThe Princess Saves Herself in This One has four sections, each showing the princess's progression in agreement with an overlying theme.\n\nThe Princess\nThe first section focuses mainly on the author, and her battles in the past. It goes through her relationships with family members, her younger life, and her past assault. This section ends when the princess locks herself away in a tower and waits for a prince to come and rescue her.\n\nThe Damsel\nIn the second section of poems the princess confronts the issues that have come in her life. They are represented in the ideas of the \"big bad wolf\" who has hurt her in the past and the dragons who have terrorized her, as well as talking about the death of her mother and her sister.\n\nThe Queen\nThe third section of poems, in which the princess stands up to face the dragon, deals with the grief she faced in losing her mother, and how she felt when she fell in love with the right person.\n\nYou\nIn the final section Lovelace encourages the reader to believe that they can deal with anything.\n\nSeries and themes\nAccording to one reviewer, The Princess Saves Herself in This One and the accompanying volumes \"take some of the most recognized female archetypes — princess, witch, and soon, mermaid — and retells their narratives in a modern, feminist, empowered way\". Lovelace said the book is about the abuse she has faced in her life, and added that the book was going to be uncomfortable for people. She told Bustle, \"If there’s one thing I'm trying to do with this particular poetry series, it's to show the rich inner lives of women with a focus on our hidden everyday struggles\".\n\nThe second volume, The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One, centers on a witch and deals with \"anger and rape culture\"; it was published in March 2018, again by Andrews McMeel. The Mermaid's Voice Returns In This One, about sexual trauma and healing, is published in the spring of 2019.\n\nCritical reception\nReviews of The Princess were mixed, and some controversy followed. Sales were going \"remarkably well\" for a collection of poetry.\n\nE. Ce Miller, for The Bustle, said it was full of \"autobiographical pain, subtle strength, and quiet resilience\". Some, however, take issue with the idea of Instapoetry, a category under which the princess does fall. Instapoetry is poetry mostly posted on the social media site Instagram which closely follows the style of Charles Bukowski. The style is heavily criticized for its simplicity in the subjects. There has been debate as to whether the style is killing or reviving poetry.\n\nAwards \n Good Reads Choice Award (2016, Poetry)\n\nReferences\n\n2016 poetry books\nAmerican poetry collections\nSelf-published books"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar",
"is there more discussion about her vocal style?",
"The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are \"fine\", but they do not match those of her peers.",
"what does it mean that they don't match those of her peers?",
"described Swift's vocals as \"flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt\". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune.",
"Has there been any other criticisms?",
"writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is \"not the best technical singer\", but described her as the \"best communicator that we've got\".",
"What else stands out in this section about her musical style?",
"She has said that she only feels nervous performing \"if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows\"."
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | What else does Swift say? | 9 | Besides feeling nervouse performing, what else does Taylor Swift say? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
Featured articles
Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"It Did Make a Difference is the discography album of one of Sweden's first hardcore punk band, Step Forward. It is the complete discography of the band, released on CD. Being one of the few hardcore punk bands of Sweden back in 1989, their fast and energetic tunes were the starting point of Sweden's hardcore scene. Members of this band went to form bands like Refused and others.\n\nTrack listing\nDoes It Make A Difference Recordings (1990)\nAway \nFor myself \nThink ahead \nNothing to say \nMy love\nDeal with it\n3 mil till Vännäs\nDoes it make a difference\nThe dream\nKilling for profit\nFiller (Minor Threat cover)\n\nI Am Me Recordings (1989)\nChange today\nStop the madness\nA point of view\nI am me\nFalse people\nFace the reality\nTomorrows world\n4 u\nSteppin stone (The Monkees cover) \nIt isn't funny at all\nTry\nI am me\nThe dream\n4 u\nWe're gonna fight (7 Seconds cover)\n\nLive Recordings\nWhat do you say Moe?\nA point of view\nNothing to say\nFeeding the fire\nHide from truth\nDoes it make a difference?\nSeeing is believing\nRacial hatred\nMy love\nMy life\nMommy can I go out and kill tonight? (Misfits cover)\n\nRehearsal Recordings\nStep forward\nSomething else\n\nPersonnel \nDennis Lyxzén - lead vocals, layout, production, master\n Toft Stade - bass, layout, production, master \n Jens Norden - drums, percussion\n Henrik Janson - guitar\n José Saxlund - layout\n Eskil - production, mastering\n Jonas Lyxzén - photos\n\n1989 albums\nStep Forward albums",
"\"Innocent\" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her third studio album, Speak Now (2010). It was produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman. Written by Swift in response to Kanye West's interruption of her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the song is Swift's confession to West, claiming that he was \"innocent\" despite the public outrage after the controversy. Swift premiered the song at the following year's MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010, a month prior to the release of Speak Now, as a means of putting the controversy behind them.\n\nFollowing the release of Speak Now, \"Innocent\" debuted at number 53 and 27 on the Canadian Hot 100 and Billboard Hot 100, respectively. The song received mixed reviews from critics—some complimented the sparse instrumentation, but others found the lyrics patronizing, fueling debates over Swift's public image as an innocent sweetheart.\n\nBackground and composition\n\n\"Innocent\" features sparse instrumentation to reflect the simplicity of innocence, while lyrically it speaks about someone who has lost their way in life but who is \"still an innocent\". With lyrics such as \"time turns flames to embers / You'll have new Septembers\" and \"Today is never too late to be brand new,\" the song also conveys a message of forgiveness and redemption, describing how anyone can rise above and move past a difficult time in their life.\n\nIn the liner notes for Speak Now, Swift explained that every song on the album is an \"open letter\" to someone in her life, \"telling them what I meant to tell them in person.\" She also noted that one song in particular is addressed to \"someone I forgive for what he said in front of the whole world,\" alluding to the MTV Video Music Awards incident. Critics have noted influences of that event in the lyrics to \"Innocent\", particularly in the reference to September, as the award show took place on September 13, 2009, and the line \"32 and still growing up now\" (that being West's age at the time). Swift revealed in an interview with New York magazine that while she knew people \"expected me to write a song about [West],\" she felt it was important to \"write a song to him.\"\n\nCritical reception\nThe song garnered mixed reception from music critics. Allison Stewart of The Washington Post described \"Innocent\" as a \"small masterpiece of passive-aggressiveness\" in her review of the album. In a more mixed review of the song's debut performance, Melinda Newman of HitFix praised the song for balancing personal details and universal appeal with its \"beautiful\" lyrics, but was also critical of Swift's vocal delivery. She ultimately rated the performance a B.\n\nJonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine was more critical of the song, describing it as a \"patronizing, condescending sermon\" and somewhat hypocritical given her reputation for writing songs that \"[go] for the jugular\". Country-music journalist and CMT editorial director Chet Flippo said he was not at all surprised by the way Swift handled herself at the show. \"Everyone was waiting to see how she would do it, and that’s what she does: She writes songs based on what’s going on in her life,\" Flippo said of the ballad, which mixed forgiveness and pathos with a touch of pity. \"It's not unique. Some of the best country music writers do that, but typically those songs are self-directed and not about someone else.\"\n\nCredits and personnel \nCredits adapted from Tidal.\n Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer, acoustic guitar\n Nathan Chapman – producer, acoustic guitar, piano, digital piano, banjo, bass guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, organ, synthesizer\n Bryan Sutton – acoustic guitar\n Amos Heller – bass guitar\n Tim Marks – bass guitar\n Tommy Sims – bass guitar\n John Gardner – drums\n Nick Buda – drums\n Shannon Forrest – drums\n Grant Mickelson – electric guitar\n Mike Meadows – electric guitar\n Paul Sidoti – electric guitar\n Rob Hajacos – fiddle\n Tim Lauer – piano, Hammond B3\n Al Wilson – percussion\n Eric Darken – percussion\n Smith Curry – steel guitar\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2010s ballads\n2010 songs\nCountry ballads\nCultural depictions of Kanye West\nTaylor Swift songs\nSongs written by Taylor Swift\nSong recordings produced by Nathan Chapman (record producer)\nSong recordings produced by Taylor Swift"
]
|
[
"Taylor Swift",
"Musical style",
"How is Swift's musical style described?",
"Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts",
"does it mention who specifically influenced her?",
"she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has \"unwavering devotion\" for Spears.",
"what elements stand out in Swift's musical style?",
"Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as \"sweet, but soft\".",
"what instruments does Swift use?",
"When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar",
"is there more discussion about her vocal style?",
"The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are \"fine\", but they do not match those of her peers.",
"what does it mean that they don't match those of her peers?",
"described Swift's vocals as \"flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt\". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune.",
"Has there been any other criticisms?",
"writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is \"not the best technical singer\", but described her as the \"best communicator that we've got\".",
"What else stands out in this section about her musical style?",
"She has said that she only feels nervous performing \"if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows\".",
"What else does Swift say?",
"Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: \"I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across.\""
]
| C_cde65308fd4a465e8c3ca22c02ce1472_1 | Does she discuss further about lyrics? | 10 | Does Taylor Swift discuss further about lyrics? | Taylor Swift | Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (nee Finlay), was a homemaker who had previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift has a younger brother named Austin. The singer spent the early years of her life on a Christmas tree farm. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything". She spent her weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted a demo tape of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. However, she was rejected since "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different". When Swift was about 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her how to play guitar and helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading to her writing "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended public high school, but after two years transferred to the Aaron Academy, which through homeschooling could accommodate her touring schedule, and she graduated a year early. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling of country music, and was introduced to the genre by "the great female country artists of the '90s"--Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there". Alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna have inspired Swift. Swift lists Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind ... Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that". She admires Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It's not about fame for her, it's about music". "[Kristofferson] shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out", Swift says. She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty ... She's known as an emotional person but a strong person". Swift has also been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; Swift has said she has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to rock bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World. She has also spoken fondly of singers and songwriters like Michelle Branch, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Fefe Dobson and Justin Timberlake; and the 1960s acts The Shirelles, Doris Troy, and The Beach Boys. Swift's fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "Like a Prayer-era Madonna". Swift's music contains elements of pop, pop rock and country. She described herself as a country artist until the 2014 release of 1989, which she described as a "sonically cohesive pop album". Rolling Stone wrote: "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country--a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar--but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville". The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory". Swift's vocals were described by Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter as "sweet, but soft". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy". Rolling Stone, in a Speak Now review, wrote: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of Speak Now, The Village Voice wrote that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals are "fine", but they do not match those of her peers. In 2009, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Swift's vocals as "flat, thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt". However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with The New Yorker, Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." A writer for The Tennessean conceded in 2010 that Swift is "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her narrative songwriting, which is often inspired by her personal life, has received widespread media coverage and critical praise. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording deal with Big Machine Records in 2005, and released her eponymous debut studio album in 2006.
Swift explored country pop on the albums Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010); the success of "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" as singles on both country and pop radio established her as a leading crossover artist. She experimented with pop, rock, and electronic genres on her fourth studio album, Red (2012), supported by the singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her synth-pop fifth studio album 1989 (2014) and its chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood", Swift shed her country image and transitioned to pop completely. The subsequent media scrutiny on Swift's personal life influenced her sixth album Reputation (2017), which delved into urban sounds, led by the single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Parting ways with Big Machine to sign with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her next studio album, Lover (2019). Inspired by escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift ventured into indie folk and alternative rock styles on her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore, receiving acclaim for their nuanced storytelling. To gain ownership over the masters of her back catalog, she released the re-recordings Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021. Besides music, Swift has played supporting roles in films such as Valentine's Day (2010) and Cats (2019), has released the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), and directed the musical films Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Having sold over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time.Her concert tours are some of the highest-grossing in history. She has scored eight Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs, and received 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (the most for an artist) and 56 Guinness World Records, among other accolades. She featured on Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015) and Billboard Greatest of All Time Artists (2019) lists, and rankings such as the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Named the Woman of the 2010s Decade by Billboard and the Artist of the 2010s Decade by the American Music Awards, Swift has been recognized for her influential career and philanthropy, as well as advocacy of artists' rights and women's empowerment in the music industry.
Life and career
1989–2003: Early life and education
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and has Scottish and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer. Swift's paternal great-great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant entrepreneur and community leader who opened several businesses in Philadelphia in the 1800s. Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his clients. Swift identifies as a Christian. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters, before transferring to The Wyndcroft School. The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music. She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different."
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. He helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write "Lucky You". In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.
To help Swift break into country music, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which could better accommodate her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated a year early.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14, citing the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people’s stuff" as reasons; she was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists. She recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. Becoming one of the first signings Big Machine, she wanted "the kind of attention that a little [new] label will give," and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after. Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right "chemistry". She wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw". Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." As there were not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances, and opening for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour after they fired their previous opening act, Eric Church, for playing longer than his allotted time. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboards Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song", and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. With "Our Song", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart. "Teardrops on My Guitar" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Swift also released two EPs; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006 and 2007, including George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Swift won accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. She opened for the Rascal Flatts on their 2008 summer and fall tour. In July of that year, Swift began a romance with singer Joe Jonas that ended three months later.
2008–2010: Fearless and acting debut
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: "Love Story", "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". "Love Story", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two. All five singles were Billboard Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" peaking at number one. Fearless debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the top-selling album of 2009 in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. James Montgomery of MTV argued that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity". That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year. The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
Swift featured on John Mayer's single "Half of My Heart" and Boys Like Girls' single "Two Is Better Than One", both of which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler, and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier". She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single "Today Was a Fairytale", which was her first number one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While filming her cinematic debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift began a romantic relationship with co-star Taylor Lautner; they broke up later that year. Swift's role of the ditzy girlfriend of Lautner's character received mixed reviews. In 2009, she made her television acting debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. She also hosted and performed as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write her own opening monologue.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
In August 2010, Swift released "Mine", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of a million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The songs "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours" were released as singles. All except "The Story of Us" were Hot Country Songs top-three entries, with "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reaching number one. "Back to December" and "Mean" peaked in the top ten in Canada. Later in 2010, she briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
During her tour dates for 2011, she wrote the lyrics of various songs written by other people on her left arm. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for "Mean", which she performed during the ceremony. Media publications noted the performance as an improvement from her much criticized 2010 Grammy performance, which served as a testament to her abilities as a musician. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the "50 Best Female Albums of All Time", writing: "She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click."
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million. In November 2011, Swift released a live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: "Safe & Sound", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and "Eyes Open". "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B's single "Both of Us", released in May 2012. From July to September 2012, Swift dated Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
In August 2012, Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand, and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include "Begin Again", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red". "I Knew You Were Trouble" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Three singles, "Begin Again", "22", and "Red", reached the top 20 in the U.S.
Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers, including Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporates new genres for Swift, such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.
Red had sold eight million copies by 2014. The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with English singer Harry Styles.
In 2013, Swift recorded "Sweeter than Fiction", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour. She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift voiced Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Giver (2014).
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
In March 2014, Swift lived in New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions. Influenced by 1980s synth-pop, Swift severed ties with the country sound of her previous albums, and marketed 1989 as her "first documented, official pop album". The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week. This made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. By June 2017, 1989 had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Three of its singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar—reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The singles "Style" and "Wildest Dreams" reached the top 10 in the U.S. Other singles were "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
Prior to 1989s release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes. She re-added her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.
Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The video for "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.
Swift dated Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston for a few months, Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016. She wrote the song "Better Man" for Little Big Town's seventh album, The Breaker, which was released in November. The song earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards. Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S. and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former morning show personality for Denver's KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only a dollar. The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift. After a year of hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts and released "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The single was Swift's first number-one U.K. single. It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.
Reputation was released on November 10, 2017. The album incorporates a heavy electropop sound, with hip hop, R&B and EDM influences. It debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. With this achievement, Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S. The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. First-week worldwide sales amounted to two million copies. The album had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry "...Ready for It?", and two U.S. top-20 singles—"End Game" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and "Delicate". Other singles include "New Year's Day", which was exclusively released to U.S. country radio, and "Getaway Car", which was released in Australia only.
In April 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" from their album Bigger. In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018. In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking Swift's own record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, which was previously held by her 1989 World Tour in 2015 ($181.5 million). It also broke the record for the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. Worldwide, the tour grossed $345.7 million, making it the second highest-grossing concert tour of the year. On December 31, Swift released her Reputation Stadium Tour's accompanying concert film on Netflix.
Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.
2018–2020: Lover and masters dispute
Reputation was Swift's last album under her 12-year contract with Big Machine Records. In November 2018, she signed a new multi-album deal with Big Machine's distributor Universal Music Group; in the U.S. her subsequent releases were promoted under the Republic Records imprint. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, in the event that Universal sells any part of its stake in Spotify, which agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists. Vox called it is a huge commitment from Universal, which was "far from assured" until Swift intervened.
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. Besides longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover made Swift the first female artist to have sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S. All 18 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week, setting a record for the most simultaneous entries by a woman. The lead single, "Me!", debuted at number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to number two a week later, scoring the biggest single-week jump in chart history. Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles "You Need to Calm Down" and "Lover", and U.S. top-40 single "The Man".
Lover was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) honored Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014. The album earned accolades, including three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, "Me!" won Best Visual Effects, and "You Need to Calm Down" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.
Swift played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019). For the film's soundtrack, she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". Although critics reviewed the film negatively, Swift received positive feedback for her role and musical performance. The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicles part of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January. Miss Americana features the song "Only the Young", which Swift wrote after the 2018 United States elections. In February 2020, Swift signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing expired.
In 2019, Swift became embroiled in a publicized dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, regarding the acquisition of the masters of her back catalog. Swift stated on her Tumblr blog that she had been trying to buy the masters for years, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged a new album for an older one under another contract, which she refused to do. Against Swift's authorization, Big Machine, in April 2020, released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, a live album of Swift's performances at a radio show. In October, Braun sold Swift's masters, videos and artworks, to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $300 million. Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020. Rolling Stone highlighted this decision, along with her opposition to low royalties for artists from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as two of the music industry's most defining moments in the 2010s decade. In April 2020, Swift was scheduled to embark on Lover Fest, the supporting concert tour for Lover, which was canceled after the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–present: Folklore, Evermore, and re-recordings
In 2020, Swift released two surprise albums with little promotion, to critical acclaim. The first, her eighth studio album Folklore, was released on July 24. The second, her ninth studio album Evermore, was released on December 11. Described by Swift and Dessner as "sister records", both albums incorporate indie folk and alternative rock, departing from the previous upbeat pop releases. Swift wrote and recorded the albums while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National. Both albums feature collaborations with Bon Iver, and Evermore features collaborations with the National and Haim. Swift's boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. The making of Folklore was discussed in the concert documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, directed by Swift and released on November 25.
In the U.S., Folklore and Evermore were each supported by three singles—one to mainstream radio, one to country radio, and one to triple A radio. The singles in that order were "Cardigan", "Betty", "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver); and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime" (featuring Haim), "Coney Island" (featuring the National); respectively. The lead singles from each album, "Cardigan" and "Willow", opened at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week their parent albums debuted atop the Billboard 200. This made Swift the first artist to debut atop both the U.S. singles and albums charts simultaneously twice. Each album sold over one million units worldwide in its first week, with Folklore selling two million. Folklore broke the Guinness World Record for the highest first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify, and was the best-selling album of 2020 in the U.S., having sold 1.2 million copies. Swift was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and highest-paid solo musician worldwide. At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time. Folklore won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman in history to win the award three times.
Following the masters controversy, Swift released two re-recordings in 2021, adding "Taylor's Version" to their titles. The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so. It was preceded by the three tracks: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", "You All Over Me" with Maren Morris, and "Mr. Perfectly Fine", the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single at number one on the Hot Country Songs. Swift released "Wildest Dreams (Taylors Version)" on September 17, after the original song gained traction on the online-video sharing app TikTok. The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12. Its final track, "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"—accompanied by All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart. She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021, whereas both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the 10 best-selling albums of the year. In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.
Outside her albums, Swift featured on four songs in 2021–2022: "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, a remix of Haim's "Gasoline" and Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen". She has been cast in David O. Russell's untitled film slated for release in November 2022.
Artistry
Influences
One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church. As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own". Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music, and was introduced to the genre listening to "the great female country artists" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Hill was Swift's childhood role model: "Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it". She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton, the latter of whom she believes is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there", and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna. She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style as an influence.
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models. Discussing McCartney and Harris, Swift has said, "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers". McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind [...] He's out there continuing to make his fans so happy. Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She likes Springsteen for being "so musically relevant after such a long period of time". She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older because of prioritizing music over fame. Swift says of Kristofferson that he "shines in songwriting", and admires Simon for being "an emotional" but "a strong person". Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and Madonna. As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell for her autobiographical lyrics conveying the deepest emotions: "She wrote it about her deepest pains and most haunting demons ... I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply".
Musical styles
Swift's discography spans country, pop, folk, and alternative genres. Her first three studio albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now are categorized as country; her eclectic fourth studio album, Red, is dubbed both country and pop; her next three albums 1989, Reputation and Lover are labeled pop; and Folklore and Evermore are considered alternative. Music critics have described her songs as synth-pop, country pop, rock, electropop, and indie, amongst others; some songs, especially those on Reputation, incorporate elements of R&B, EDM, hip hop, and trap. The music instruments Swift plays include the piano, banjo, ukulele and various types of guitar. Swift described herself as a country artist until the release of 1989, which she characterized as her first "sonically cohesive pop album".
Rolling Stone wrote, "[Swift] might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." According to The New York Times, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country—a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar—but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." The Guardian wrote that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Consequence pinpointed her "capacity to continually reinvent while remaining herself", while Time dubbed Swift a "musical chameleon" for the constantly evolving sound of her discography. Clash said her career "has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing", reaching a point at which "Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift", not defined by any genre.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her singing voice is "sweet but soft" according to Sophie Schillaci of The Hollywood Reporter. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky called it "versatile and expressive". Music theory professor Alyssa Barna described the timbre of Swift's upper register as "breathy and bright", and her lower register "full and dark". The Los Angeles Times identified Swift's "defining" vocal gesture in studio recordings as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." In 2010, a writer from The Tennessean conceded that Swift was "not the best technical singer", but described her as the "best communicator that we've got". According to Swift, her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and she worked hard to improve it. She said she only feels nervous performing live "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows". The Hollywood Reporter wrote that her live vocals were "fine", but did not match those of her peers.
Though Swift's singing ability received mixed reviews early in her career, she was praised for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. Rolling Stone found her voice "unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer", while The Village Voice noted the improvement from her previously "bland and muddled" phrasing to her learning "how to make words sound like what they mean". In 2014, NPR Music described her singing as personal and conversational thanks to her "exceptional gift for inflection", but also suffered from a "wobbly pitch and tight, nasal delivery". Beginning with Folklore, she received better reviews for her vocals; Variety critic Andrew Barker noted the "remarkable" control she developed over her vocals, never allowing a "flourish or a tricky run to compromise the clarity of a lyric", while doing "wonders within her register" and "exploring its further reaches". Reviewing Fearless (Taylor's Version), The New York Times critic Lindsay Zoladz described her voice as stronger, more controlled, and deeper over time, discarding the nasal tone of her early vocals. Lucy Harbron of Clash opined that Swift's vocals have evolved "into her own unique blend of country, pop and indie".
Songwriting
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by various publications and organizations. She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate the complexities of life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, recurring themes were love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and positivity after failed relationships on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Besides romance, other themes in Swift's music include parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, and self-awareness.
Music critics often praise her self-written discography, especially her confessional narratives; they compliment her writing for its vivid details and emotional engagement, which were rare among pop artists. New York magazine argued that Swift was the first teenage artist who explicitly portrayed teenage experiences in her music. Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Although reviews of Swift are generally positive, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Because of her confessional narratives, tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of the songs with ex-lovers of Swift, a practice which New York magazine considered "sexist, inasmuch as it's not asked of her male peers". Aside from clues provided in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about song subjects specifically. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Swift stated that the criticism on her songwriting—critics interpreted her persona as a "clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her"—was "a little sexist".
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. Without referencing her personal life, she imposed her emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from the mental stress caused by tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. In a feature for Rolling Stone, Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success: "I always thought, 'That'll never track on pop radio,' but when I was making Folklore, I thought, 'If you take away all the parameters, what do you make?" With the release of Evermore, Spin found Swift exploring "exceedingly complex human emotions with precision and devastation". Consequence stated her 2020 albums "offered a chance for doubters to see Swift's songwriting power on full display, but the truth is that her pen has always been her sword" and that her writing prowess took "different forms" as she transformed from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult."
Swift's bridges have been underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs and earned her the title "Queen of Bridges" from media outlets. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today" than Swift. The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
Music videos
Swift has collaborated with many different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She has her own production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., which is credited with producing music videos for singles such as "Me!". Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean", and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White. In an interview, White elaborated that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. She produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016. While she continued to co-direct music videos with the Lover singles—"Me!" with Dave Meyers, "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch—she ventured into sole direction with the videos for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), "Cardigan" and "Willow".
Public image
Swift became a teen idol with her debut, and a pop icon following global fame. Journalists have written about her polite, "open" personality, "willing to play along" during the course of an interview. J. Freedom du Lac of The Washington Post called Swift a "media darling" and "a reporter's dream". The Guardian attributed her disposition to her formative years in country music. The Hollywood Reporter described Swift as "the Best People Person since Bill Clinton". While presenting her with an award for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"; Swift considers Obama to be a role model.
In 2015, Vanity Fair referred to Swift as "the most famous and influential entertainer on Earth". According to YouGov surveys, she ranked as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021. One of the most followed people on social media, Swift is known for her frequent and friendly interactions with her fans, delivering holiday gifts to them by mail and in person. She considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans, praising her relationship with her fans as "the longest and best" she has ever had. Swift regularly incorporates easter eggs into her works and social media posts for fans to figure out clues about a forthcoming release. Fawzia Khan of Elle attributes Swift's "perennial" success partly to her intimacy with fans.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businessperson. According to marketing executive Matt B. Britton, her business acumen has helped her "excel as an authentic personality who establishes direct connections with her audience", "touch as many people as possible", and "generate a kind of advocacy and excitement that no level of advertising could." Describing her omnipresence, The Ringer writer Kate Knibbs said Swift is not just a pop act but "a musical biosphere unto herself", having achieved the kind of success "that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability."
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life—believing it to be "a career weakness"—it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation. Clash described her as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. While The New York Times asserted in 2013 that Swift's "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis", certain critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming Swift's life and career have been subject to. She parodied this scrutiny in "Blank Space". Rolling Stone said, after the release of 1989, "everything she did was a story", with a non-stop news cycle about her, leaving her overexposed. Much of Reputation was conceived under the "intense" media scrutiny she experienced in 2015 and 2016, causing her to adopt a dark, defensive alter ego on the album. She criticized sexist double standards and gaslighting in "The Man" (2019) and "Mad Woman" (2020), respectively. When asked "why sing to the haters?" by CBS journalist Tracy Smith, Swift replied, "well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them." Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision and triggers "fragile male egos" to take "pot-shots" at her career. The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism is crucial for the industry and that she "must continue holding people to account".
Fashion
Swift's fashion is often covered by media outlets, with her street style receiving acclaim. Her fashion appeal has been picked up by several media publications, such as People, Elle, Vogue, and Maxim. Vogue regards Swift as one of the world's most influential figures in sustainable fashion. Elle highlighted the various styles she has adopted throughout her career, including the "curly-haired teenager" of her early days to "red-lipped pop bombshell" with "platinum blonde hair and sultry makeup looks" later on. Swift is known for reinventing her image often, corresponding each one of her albums to a specific aesthetic. Swift also popularized cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore. Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from "girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade."
Though labeled by the media as "America's Sweetheart", a sobriquet based on her down-to-earth personality and girl-next-door image, Swift insists she does not "live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free". Although she refused to take part in "sexy" photoshoots in 2012, she stated "it's nice to be glamorous" in 2015. Bloomberg views Swift as a sex symbol, albeit of a subtle and sophisticated variety unlike many of her female contemporaries.
Impact
Swift's career helped shape the modern country music scene. According to music journalist Jody Rosen, Swift is the first country artist whose fame reached the world beyond the U.S. Her chart success extended to Asia and the U.K., where country music had previously not been popular. She is recognized as one of the first country artists to use technology and viral marketing techniques, such as MySpace, to promote their work. According to Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly, the commercial success of her debut album helped the infant Big Machine Records go on to sign Garth Brooks and Jewel. Following Swift's rise to fame, country labels became more interested in signing young singers who write their own music. With her autobiographical narratives revolving around romance and heartbreak, she introduced the genre to a younger generation that could relate to her personally. Critics have since noted the impact of Swift's sound on various albums released by female country singers such as Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini. Rolling Stone listed her country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music and ranked her 80th in their list of 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.Her onstage performance with guitars contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor", a phenomenon to which the rise in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed. Pitchfork opined that Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her "unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation" and a "singularly perceptive" discography that consistently accommodates both musical and cultural shifts. Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds. Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music and remarked she "has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit." Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote that, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st-century with her ambitious artistic vision.
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated music industry following the decline of the album era in the 2010s. For this reason, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as "the last great rock star". Swift is the only artist to have four albums sell over one million copies in one week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the Billboard 200 in 1991. To New York magazine, her million sales figures prove that she is "the one bending the music industry to her will". The Atlantic notes that Swift's "reign" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years. She is a champion of independent record shops, having contributed to the 21st-century vinyl revival. Journalists note how her actions have fostered debate over reforms to on-demand music streaming and prompted awareness of intellectual property rights among younger musicians, praising her ability to bring change in the music industry.
She was named Woman of the Decade for the 2010s by Billboard, became the first woman to earn the title Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and received the Brit Global Icon Award "in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world". Swift has influenced various mainstream and indie recording artists. Various sources deem her music to be representative and paradigmatic of the millennial generation, owing to her success, musical versatility, social media presence, live shows, and corporate sponsorship. Vox called Swift the "millennial Bruce Springsteen" for telling the stories of a generation through her songs. Student societies focusing on her were established in various universities around the world, such as Oxford, York, and Cambridge. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a course on Swift's career. Some of her popular songs like "Love Story" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.
Accolades and achievements
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three Album of the Year wins—tied for most by an artist), an Emmy Award, 34 American Music Awards (most wins by an artist), 25 Billboard Music Awards (most wins by a woman), 56 Guinness World Records, 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient. Her albums Red and 1989 appeared on Rolling Stone's 2020 revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in 2021, her "Blank Space" music video named one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, while the songs "All Too Well" and "Blank Space" were on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million singles sales, and 114 million units in album consumption worldwide, including 78 billion streams. Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist in this millennium, and is the best-selling artist of all time on Chinese digital music platforms with in income. She is the only female artist to have received more than 100 million global streams on Spotify in a day, with over 122 million streams on November 11, 2021. Swift broke the record for the highest-grossing North American tour of all time with her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) and is the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s. She has the most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 69 and 31 songs, respectively.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (50 weeks at number one), the solo act with the most cumulative weeks (55) atop the Billboard 200, the woman with the most weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98) and the most Billboard Hot 100 entries in history (165), and the artist with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23). She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the US, with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first female artist to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. In 2021, one of every 50 albums sold in the US was Swift's, who became the first woman to have five albums—1989, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Red and Reputation—chart for 150 weeks each on the Billboard 200.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault. From 2011 to 2020, Swift appeared in the top three on the Forbes Top-Earning Women in Music list, placing first in 2016 and 2019. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. In 2015, Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women, ranked at number 64. She was the most googled female musician of 2019.
Other activities
Wealth and properties
In 2021, Forbes estimated Swift's net worth at US$550 million, coming from her music, merchandise, promotions, and concerts. She topped the magazine's list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed in 2019 with $185 million. Swift was the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, with $825 million earned.
Swift has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million. For example, she purchased the Samuel Goldwyn Estate, a Georgian-revival house in Beverly Hills, for $25 million in 2015, which she has since restored to its original condition and contains Swift's home studio, Kitty Committee, where she recorded songs for Folklore. In 2013, she purchased the Holiday House, a seafront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Gina Raimondo, then-Governor of Rhode Island, proposed in 2015 a statewide property tax for second homes worth more than $1 million, dubbed the "Taylor Swift tax". In New York City, her $47 million worth of property on a single block in Tribeca includes a $19.95 million duplex penthouse, an $18 million four-story townhouse, and a $9.75 million apartment purchased in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Philanthropy
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts. She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list, and has received the "Star of Compassion" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services, The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" as well as "inspiring others through action", and the Ripple of Hope Award for her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age". In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017. In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, MusiCares, and Feeding America. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" during One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
Politics and activism
Swift is pro-choice, and has been regarded as a feminist icon by various publications. During the 2008 United States presidential election, she promoted the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process. She was one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Swift has also spoken out against LGBT discrimination, which was the theme of the music video for "Mean". On multiple occasions, she encouraged support for the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others. In 2019, she donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career because country record label executives insisted "Don't be like the Dixie Chicks!", and first became active during the 2018 United States elections. She declared her support for Democrats Jim Cooper and Phil Bredesen to represent Tennessee in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and expressed her desire for greater LGBT rights, gender equality and racial equality, condemned systemic racism. In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post. She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 United States presidential election, and was found to be one of the most influential celebrities in the polls.
Swift has supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the U.S, and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country. Following the murders of African-American men Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement. After then-president Donald Trump posted a controversial tweet on the unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Swift accused him of promoting white supremacy and racism in his term. She called for the removal of Confederate monuments of "racist historical figures" in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.
Endorsements
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and "Got Milk?". She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted. In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight, followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016. She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One, and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney. In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.
Discography
Studio albums
Taylor Swift (2006)
Fearless (2008)
Speak Now (2010)
Red (2012)
1989 (2014)
Reputation (2017)
Lover (2019)
Folklore (2020)
Evermore (2020)
Re-recordings
Fearless (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Red (Taylor's Version) (2021)
Filmography
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009)
Valentine's Day (2010)
Journey to Fearless (2010)
The Lorax (2012)
The Giver (2014)
The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
Cats (2019)
Miss Americana (2020)
City of Lover (2020)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)
All Too Well: The Short Film (2021)
Tours
Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
The Red Tour (2013–2014)
The 1989 World Tour (2015)
Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
See also
List of best-selling albums by year in the United States
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
Grammy Award records – Youngest artists to win Album of the Year
Grammy Award records – Most Grammys won by a female artist
List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
List of Grammy Award winners and nominees by country
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
List of most-followed Twitter accounts
List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
Best-selling female artists of all time
Footnotes
References
External links
Taylor Swift
1989 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Nashville, Tennessee
Alternative rock singers
American acoustic guitarists
American country banjoists
American country guitarists
American country pianists
American country record producers
American country singer-songwriters
American country songwriters
American women country singers
American women pop singers
American women rock singers
American women singer-songwriters
American women songwriters
American women record producers
American feminists
American film actresses
American folk guitarists
American folk musicians
American folk singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American multi-instrumentalists
American music video directors
American people of German descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American pop guitarists
American pop pianists
American synth-pop musicians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women guitarists
American women pianists
Big Machine Records artists
Brit Award winners
Christians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Tennessee
Emmy Award winners
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Forbes 30 Under 30 multi-time recipients
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Pennsylvania
Guitarists from Tennessee
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
NME Awards winners
RCA Records artists
Record producers from Tennessee
Republic Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Sony Music Publishing artists
Synth-pop singers
Universal Music Group artists
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Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania | false | [
"SongMeanings is a music website that encourages users to discuss and comment on the underlying meanings and messages of individual songs. As of May 2015, the website contains over 110,000 artists, 1,000,000 lyrics, 14,000 albums, and 530,000 members.\n\nHistory\nSongMeanings was created by Michael Schiano and Brian Adams. Schiano states that the website's objective is to discuss \"factual song meanings, personal experiences through the song, or even just their dismay for a song\". The website was created in late 2000 by Schiano after he was inspired by a debate surrounding the meaning behind music group Ben Folds Five's song, \"Brick\".\n\nIn September 2011, SongMeanings agreed to terms with LyricFind to provide licensed lyrics. This agreement makes SongMeanings a legal entity amongst the hundreds of illegal lyrics sites.\n\nIn April 2012, TechCrunch announced a partnership between The Echo Nest and SongMeanings. In this partnership, SongMeanings makes available community discussions around the meanings of various lyrics.\n\nSongMeanings for over a decade operated under songmeanings.net. During July 2013, SongMeanings began operating under songmeanings.com having acquired the domain a few months earlier.\n\nLyrics\nThe website has received significant coverage in mainstream news for its discussions on certain songs. In July 2005, users fiercely debated the meanings of the lyrics to Coldplay's song, \"Speed of Sound\". The News & Observer called SongMeaning's discussions on the meaning to the lyrics of 50 Cent's \"Wanksta\" particularly \"illuminating\". Attention was brought to SongMeanings in July 2007 when it was used to discuss what Tyondai Braxton meant in his underground song \"Atlas\". However, one of the most hotly debated songs is the Eagles' \"Hotel California\" with thousands of users weighing in on the true meaning of the song; leading theories include addiction and a secret message from a satanic cult. Writing for British newspaper The Guardian, Laura Barton discussed SongMeanings in an article focusing on the problem of mishearing lyrics in a song, the inability to determine what the lyrics are due to a lack of sleevenotes when downloading songs, and whether or not it is even essential to know the lyrics in order to understand a song. From the website, she chose the discussion on The Beatles's song, \"I Am the Walrus\", as an example, due to its cryptic lyrics. Barton quoted one of the comments from the website, which considered the song as a \"philosophy of life\", and that it was a song that was a prime example of one that \"threw into disarray the import placed upon lyrics\". She then rebutted this by choosing Elton John's \"Your Song\" as a better example of this.\n\nReception\nSongMeanings has been recommended by several publications. The Herald & Review asked its readers, \"Looking for an intense discussion on the meaning and influence of [50 Cent's] \"In Da Club\"? Maybe this site will help. It's also good if you're trying to figure out what exactly The Decemberists' \"Sixteen Military Wives\" means.\" The Jakarta Post also mentioned the site in an article on useful music- and lyrics-related websites. David Turim of the Chicago Tribune called it a \"pretty fascinating site for any contemporary music fan\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nOnline music and lyrics databases\nAmerican music websites",
"\"'N Everything\" is an Al Jolson song by songwriters B.G. \"Buddy\" DeSylva and Gus Kahn. Jolson adapted the song with improvisation as performances of Sinbad progressed, leading Jolson to eventually be given co-lyricist credit on the song. The success of \"N' Everything\" prompted Jolson to ask DeSylva for further songs. And DeSylva complied with his request to write some songs, including \"I'll Say She Does\", again with Kahn and Jolson listed as his collaborators.\n\nHistory\nJolson recorded '\"N' Everything\" in 1917 and then interpolated the song into Sinbad at New York's Winter Garden Theatre in 1918.\n\nReferences\n\n1917 songs\nAl Jolson songs\nSongs with lyrics by Gus Kahn\nSongs with lyrics by Buddy DeSylva"
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"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)"
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| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years? | 1 | what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | first album released through Universal Republic, | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Universal Motown Republic Group (UMRG) was an umbrella label founded in 1999 by Universal Music Group to oversee the labels assigned to its unit. UMRG was formed in 1999 by pooling together Universal Records, Motown Records, and Republic Records, (the first of the three is now defunct), but which gave way to the current incarnations of those labels at the time, Universal Motown Records and Universal Republic Records.\n\nUniversal Motown Republic Group was one of the three Universal Music Group umbrella units in North America to deal primarily with mainstream pop, rock, and urban performers; the others being: The Island Def Jam Music Group and Interscope-Geffen-A&M. Barry Weiss served as Chairman & CEO of the Company. In the summer of 2011, changes were made at the Universal Motown Republic Group umbrella: Motown Records was separated from Universal Motown Records (causing it to shut down and transfer its artists to either Motown Records or Universal Republic Records) and the umbrella label and merged into The Island Def Jam Music Group, making Universal Republic Records a stand-alone label and shutting down Universal Motown Republic Group.\n\nCurrent Universal Motown Republic Group Labels\n\nUniversal Motown Records\nCasablanca Records \nCash Money Records\nYoung Money Entertainment\nSRC Records\nLoud Records\nRowdy Records\nCustard Records\nEcstatic Peace!\nDerrty Entertainment\n\nUniversal Republic Records\nCasablanca Records\nRepublic Nashville\nNext Plateau Entertainment\nChamillitary Entertainment\nSerjical Strike Records\nTuff Gong\nBrushfire Records\nLava Records\nANTI-\n\nArtists\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nDefunct record labels of the United States\nNew York (state) record labels\nUniversal Records\nMotown\nRepublic Records\nRecord labels established in 1999\nRecord labels disestablished in 2011\nLabels distributed by Universal Music Group\n1999 establishments in New York City",
"Universal Records was a record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated as part of the Universal Motown Republic Group. The label has been dormant since 2005, due to Universal Motown and Universal Republic Records being formed and taking all of the artists from it. Those labels were eventually combined to form the latest iteration of Republic Records.\n\nHistory\nFounded in 1995 as Rising Tide Records, the label would ultimately begin to thrive the following year when its name was changed to Universal Records to complement the branding overhaul of the Universal Studios structure since MCA Inc. was purchased from Matsushita Electric by Seagram. The label, which is actually the second incarnation (the first one was a short-lived underground imprint of MCA Records that existed from 1988 to 1989) was created by former Universal Music Group chairman Doug Morris (who now heads Sony Music Entertainment) and Daniel Glass, who became its president.\n\nUniversal Records had success in breaking new artists, including the multi-platinum debut of Erykah Badu, Billie Myers, Goldfinger, Akon and the Lost Boyz. Glass formed relationships with independent record labels as Kedar Entertainment and Mojo Records.\n\nThe label had successes with acts like 3 Doors Down, 98 Degrees, Chamillionaire, Godsmack, Mushroomhead, Flaw, Hatebreed, Lifer, Jack Johnson, Juvenile, Nelly, Big Sha, Lil Wayne, and Mika. In 1999, Universal Records was pooled together with Motown Records and Republic Records to form Universal Motown Republic Group.\n\nThere have been unrelated Universal Records labels in Europe and the Philippines. Because of the unrelated label in the Philippines owning the rights to the Universal Records name in that country, parent company Universal Music Group does business there as MCA Music, Inc., using UMG's former name.\n\nIt was also the distributor of Polydor in the United States. Distribution switched to Interscope Geffen A&M and Republic Records after the label's dissolution.\n\nAffiliated labels \nAffiliated labels included Celtic Heartbeat Records, co-founded by U2 manager Paul McGuinness. formerly affiliated with Atlantic Records, and Universal Motown Republic Group (UMRG). Bill Whelan's Riverdance was Celtic Heartbeat's first album to sell more than a million copies.\n\nSee also \n Universal Records artists\n List of record labels\n\nReferences\n\n \nAmerican record labels\nRecord labels based in California\nDefunct record labels of the United States\nLabels distributed by Universal Music Group\nContemporary R&B record labels\nHeavy metal record labels\nHip hop record labels\nPop record labels\nRock record labels\nDefunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles\nRecord labels established in 1995\nRecord labels disestablished in 2005\n1995 establishments in California\n2005 disestablishments in California\nUniversal Music Group"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,"
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 2 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides the release of Tori Amos's first album through Universal Republic? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | 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"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December"
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | Where there any high chartin hits on tht album? | 3 | Where there any high charting hits on the album From Russia with Love? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | false | [
"The Hardball Times (abbreviated as THT) is a website which publishes news, original comments and statistical analysis of baseball each week Monday through Friday, in addition to the Hardball Times Annual book which features essays by leading sabermetric personalities. The website features the slogan \"Baseball. Insight. Daily.\" Run by current owner Dave Studeman and David Gassko, it was founded by Aaron Gleeman and Bill James assistant Matthew Namee in 2004. Fangraphs acquired the site in 2012. The Hardball Times went on temporary hiatus in early 2020 due to decreasing traffic caused by the delay of the season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nStaff\nThe Hardball Times maintains a large and ever-changing stable of writers; many of its writers have gone on to work for larger media organizations (former writers Aaron Gleeman and Craig Calcaterra both work for NBC) or major league baseball teams (including Carlos Gomez, who is a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks; Dan Fox, who is the Director of Baseball Systems Development for the Pittsburgh Pirates; Adam Guttridge, who is a Baseball Operations Analyst for the Milwaukee Brewers; and Josh Kalk, who is a Baseball Operations Analyst with the Tampa Bay Rays). \nIts current staff as of 2010 includes Richard Barbieri, John Barten, Brian Borawski, Kevin Dame, Joshua Fisher, Brandon Isleib, Chris Jaffe, Brad Johnson, Max Marchi, Bruce Markusen, Dan Novick, Harry Pavlidis, Alex Pedicini, Jeff Sackmann, Mike Silver, Nick Steiner, Steve Treder, Geoff Young, Ricky Zanker, and a cartoonist who goes by “Tuck!” One of THT’s best-known and most controversial writers, John Brattain, died on March 24, 2009.\n\nThe site is edited by Joe Distelheim, Travis Conrads, Jeremiah Oshan and Bryan Tsao.\nTHT also features a blog, THT Live, which is run by Novick.\n\nTHT Fantasy\nThe Hardball Times includes a dedicated fantasy section, running multiple articles a day five days a week. Its writers include Derek Carty, who has been there from the start, as well as Derek Ambrosino, Jeffrey Gross, Matt Hagen, Jonathan Halket, Jeremiah Oshan, Josh Shepardson, and Jonathan Sher. THT Fantasy is edited by Travis Conrads, Ben Jacobs, and Jeremiah Oshan.\n\nTHT Fantasy runs a weekly \"Roster Doctor\" column in which writers dissect a reader's roster and features a daily updated \"Closer Watch\" feature, which allows readers to keep up tabs on the closer situation for all 30 Major League teams. THT Fantasy also features weekly waiver wire articles that dissect undervalued fantasy players in the AL and NL.\n\nTHT Forecasts\nLaunched in March 2010, THT Forecasts begins its third season as a subscription-only section featuring Brian Cartwright's Oliver Projections. Subscribers can access six years worth of projections, including minor league players, which are updated weekly during the season.\n\nBooks\nSince its inception in 2004, The Hardball Times has released an annual book, “The Hardball Times Baseball Annual.” The latest edition, “The Hardball Times Annual 2012,” features reviews of the 2011 season as well as articles by the likes of Rob Neyer, Craig Calcaterra, Adam Dorhauer, Matt Swartz, Max Marchi, John Dewan, Michael Humphreys and Brian Cartwright.\n\nFrom 2007-2009, The Hardball Times also released a pre-season book, “The Hardball Times Season Preview.” The book consisted of 30 team essays, over 1,000 player comments, and projections for each player. It also featured projected standings, career projections, and multiple essays in the back of the book, mostly concerning fantasy baseball. In the 2010, the book was replaced by THT Forecasts.\n\nIn 2004, Steve Treder and Dave Studeman also released “The Hardball Times Bullpen Book,” which chronicled the history of major league relievers and reviewed, in detail, the best and worst performers of each major league bullpen from 2002 through 2004.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n\n The Hardball Times\n THT Fantasy\n THT Live\n THT Forecasts\n\nInternet properties established in 2004\nBaseball statistics\nFantasy sports\nMajor League Baseball websites\nBaseball websites\nAmerican sport websites",
"Embrace the Dead is the second album by Indonesian extreme metal band Kekal. It reached sold-out status in 2004. On 15 August 2010, a new, remastered limited edition entitled Embrace the Dead 1999 was released as a free download, for up to a 1000 downloads. On 18 May 2012, Kekal made the re-mastered edition available for purchase on Bandcamp, citing exorbitant prices for second-hand copies of the original album on sites like Amazon.\n\nRecording\nEmbrace the Dead was, according to the band, the most difficult recording session for any of its albums. The band had almost no budget, and encountered problems with 16-track analog tape recorder that it was using. Because of the budget problems, the band could not book the studio ahead of time, and had to use left-over time from other band's recording sessions. This resulted in chaotic production quality, as the band had to reset the sound and mixing levels each time it recorded. Overall, it took almost seven months for the band to record the album. After recording, the band faced additional problems with releasing the album. The original cassette tape version was released in August 1999 for the Southeast Asian market only by Indonesian label THT Productions, but according to the band the original release date of the CD version was pushed forward to July 2000, when it was released on Fleshwalker Records, and then THT Productions released the CD version in February 2001.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRelease history\n\nPersonnel\nJeff – guitars, vocals, keys, additional bass\nAzhar – bass, vocals, additional guitar\nLeo – guitars\nHabil Kurnia – keys, engineering and mixing\nVera – female vocals\nThe Black Machine – drums\nPrastowo Aklisugoro – engineering and mixing\nDenny Andreas – engineering and mixing\nJeff – engineering and mixing\nJeff/Soundmind Graphics – cover layout design\n\nReferences\n\n1999 albums\nKekal albums\nDeath metal albums by Indonesian artists\nDoom metal albums\nDark wave albums"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December",
"Where there any high chartin hits on tht album?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | How was the album ranked? | 4 | How was From Russia with Love ranked? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | top 10 | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"How the West Was Won may refer to:\n How the West Was Won (film), a 1962 American Western film\n How the West Was Won (TV series), a 1970s television series loosely based on the film\n How the West Was Won (Bing Crosby album) (1959)\n How the West Was Won (Led Zeppelin album) (2003)\n How the West Was Won (Peter Perrett album) (2017)\n How the West Was Won, a 2002 album by Luni Coleone\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1987 song by Laibach from Opus Dei\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1996 song by the Romo band Plastic Fantastic\n\nSee also\n How the West Was Fun, a 1994 TV movie starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen\n How the West Was One (disambiguation)\n \"How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us\", a 1997 song by R.E.M.",
"How the West Was One may refer to:\n\n How the West Was One (Cali Agents album), 2000\n How the West Was One (2nd Chapter of Acts, Phil Keaggy and a band called David album), 1977\n How the West Was One (Carbon Leaf album), 2010\n\nSee also\n How the West Was Won (disambiguation)"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December",
"Where there any high chartin hits on tht album?",
"I don't know.",
"How was the album ranked?",
"top 10"
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | Did they have any hits? | 5 | Did From Russia with Love have any hits? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | false | [
"This is Really Something is a greatest hits album by Australian rock and pop band The Sports, released in August 1997.\nThe album was re-released in August 2004 under the title The Definitive Collection.\n\nBackground and release\nThe Sports formed in 1976 and were signed to Mushroom Records in 1977. Their first Australian hit was \"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" in 1978 but they cracked the UK chart with \"Who Listens to the Radio\" in 1979. They broke up in 1981 after just four albums, three of which peaked within the top 20 in Australia.\n\nReception\n\nBernard Zuel of Sydney Morning Herald believes if The Sports had been English they would have been huge. saying \"\"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" and \"Who Listens to the Radio\" are classic new wave moments\" adding \"it's in the collection of could-have-been/should-have-been hits from 1979-81 that this compilation provides its worth. Great pop songs played well - rare enough at any time, a treasure all the time.\n\nJason Ankeny from AllMusic said \"The two-disc, 36-track complete anthology paints a definitive portrait of the Sports' career; split between singles and album tracks (compiled on the first disc) and rare and unreleased material (found on the second), the set is a solid introduction to the work of a sadly underrecognized group, a kind of Australian counterpart to the music of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker or Joe Jackson.\"\n\nAn Amazon reviewer said \"This definitive collection features 2CDs each containing the quintessential The Sports tunes including \"Who Listens to the Radio\", \"Don't Throw Stones\" and \"Strangers on a Train\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nThe Sports albums\nMushroom Records albums\n1997 greatest hits albums\nCompilation albums by Australian artists",
"Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits is the second compilation album by the Filipino singer Donna Cruz, released in the Philippines in 2001 by Viva Records. The album was Cruz's first album not to receive a PARI certification; all of her studio albums and a previous compilation album, The Best of Donna, were certified either gold or platinum. Though it was labeled as a greatest hits compilation, several songs on the track listing had not been released as singles, and some of Cruz's singles did not appear on the album.\n\nBackground\nReleased during Cruz's break from the entertainment industry, Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits did not include any newly recorded material. Cruz's version of \"Jubilee Song\", which was not found on any of Cruz's albums (as she never recorded studio albums after Hulog Ng Langit in 1999) was included. It was seen as an updated version of Cruz's greatest hits as it included her latest singles \"Hulog ng Langit\" and \"Ikaw Pala 'Yon\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2001 compilation albums\nViva Records (Philippines) compilation albums\nDonna Cruz albums"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December",
"Where there any high chartin hits on tht album?",
"I don't know.",
"How was the album ranked?",
"top 10",
"Did they have any hits?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | Did any thing happen in 2009 | 6 | Did anything happen to Tori Amos in 2009? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Sexy Sweet Thing is a 2000 album released by the funk/R&B group Cameo. This 13-track release was Cameo's first full album of new material since In the Face of Funk in 1994, and peaked June 24, 2000, at #64 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. To date, this has been the last album released by Cameo; Sexy Sweet Thing was followed up by the single \"El Passo\" in 2019 but did not chart making this record their latest to enter any chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nExternal links\n\nReferences \n\nSexy Sweet Thing\nSexy Sweet Thing",
"Petar Cvirn (born 1 September 1986 in Zagreb) is a Croatian actor.\n\nHistory \nCvirn first started acting at the age of 10 in a partner theatre of the Croatian National Theatre. Cvirn has been chosen since elementary school to play lead roles 14 different plays and works such as Cinderella, and as the Greek God Apolo in The Fury of the Gods. He debuted on the big screen as a 13-year-old in the movie God Forbid a Worse Thing Should Happen by Snježana Tribuson. Freedom from Despair was his next film.\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision roles \n Ruza vjetrova as Filip (2011)\n Dolina sunca as Lovro Bukovac (2009–2010)\n Balkan Inc. as Kreso Lisjak (2006)\n\nFilm roles \n Half an Hour for Granny (2010)\n Sleep Sweet, My Darling (2005)\n Freedom from Despair (2004)\n God Forbid a Worse Thing Should Happen (2002)\n\nReferences \n\n20th-century Croatian male actors\nCroatian male film actors\nCroatian male television actors\nLiving people\n1986 births\n21st-century Croatian male actors\nMale actors from Zagreb"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"what was Toris relation to the Universal republic years?",
"first album released through Universal Republic,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December",
"Where there any high chartin hits on tht album?",
"I don't know.",
"How was the album ranked?",
"top 10",
"Did they have any hits?",
"I don't know.",
"Did any thing happen in 2009",
"her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews."
]
| C_ebdcef4f55a44ee8b6adfbf8d9188ade_0 | Did anything happen to the band during the relasement? | 7 | Did anything happen to Tori Amos's band during the release From Russia with Love? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | false | [
"Anything Can Happen is a 1952 comedy-drama film.\n\nAnything Can Happen may also refer to:\n\n Anything Can Happen (album), by Leon Russell, 1994\n \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2019 song by Saint Jhn \n Edhuvum Nadakkum ('Anything Can Happen'), a season of the Tamil TV series Marmadesam\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour\", or \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2007 song by Enter Shikari\n Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour (EP), 2004\n\nSee also\n \"Anything Could Happen\", a 2012 song by Ellie Goulding \n Anything Might Happen, 1934 British crime film\n Special Effects: Anything Can Happen, a 1996 American documentary film\n \"Anything Can Happen on Halloween\", a song from the 1986 film The Worst Witch \n Anything Can Happen in the Theatre, a musical revue of works by Maury Yeston\n \"The Anything Can Happen Recurrence\", an episode of The Big Bang Theory (season 7)\n The Anupam Kher Show - Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai ('The Anupam Kher Show — Anything Can Happen') an Indian TV show",
"\"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (often shortened to \"Anything Can Happen\") is the second physical single, and third overall, by Enter Shikari and the second single to be released from their debut album Take to the Skies. It was released on 18 February 2007 for digital download and on 5 March 2007 on both CD and 7\" vinyl. It is the band's highest charting single, charting at #27 in the UK single chart, and number 1 on the UK indie chart. There are two remixes of the song, Colon Open Bracket Remix and Grayedout Mix. Both are up for download on their official download store.\n\nTrack listing\n\n CD\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 4:40\n \"Kickin' Back on the Surface of Your Cheek\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 3:50\n \"Keep It on Ice\" (Rou) - 2:51\n\n 7\"\n\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 4:40\n \"Kickin' Back on the Surface of Your Cheek\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 3:50\n\nOriginal version\nIn the original version of the song, a sample is heard from the introduction of the popular 1960s TV series Stingray in which the character says \"Anything can happen in the next half hour\". This is, however, not heard in the re-recorded version.\n\nChart performance\n\nPersonnel\n\nEnter Shikari\nRoughton \"Rou\" Reynolds - vocals, electronics\nLiam \"Rory\" Clewlow - guitar\nChris Batten - bass, vocals\nRob Rolfe - drums\nProduction\nEnter Shikari - production\nJohn Mitchell - recording\nBen Humphreys - recording\nMartin Giles - mastering\nKeaton Henson - illustration, design\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Video - \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" video.\n Original Video - Original video using the 2004 EP version of the song.\n Stingray Introduction - The phrase can be heard at 0:44\n\n2007 singles\nEnter Shikari songs\nSong articles missing an audio sample\n2007 songs"
]
|
[
"Uncle Tupelo",
"Breakup"
]
| C_eea056c49cca401a93366614591e197d_1 | what caused thee beaak up | 1 | what caused Uncle Tupelo to break up? | Uncle Tupelo | With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled: Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore. Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and didn't want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record." Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, since Farrar decided not to tell him in person. The following day, the two singers engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita--who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running--Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo's last concert was May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore. CANNOTANSWER | Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, | Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt with Heidorn, while the remaining members continued as Wilco.
Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and was widely influential. Uncle Tupelo's sound was unlike popular country music of the time, drawing inspiration from styles as diverse as the hardcore punk of The Minutemen and the country instrumentation and harmony of the Carter Family and Hank Williams. Farrar and Tweedy's lyrics frequently referred to Middle America and the working class of Belleville.
History
The Plebes and The Primitives
Jay Farrar, along with his brothers Wade and Dade, played in an early 1980s garage band named The Plebes. Hailing from Belleville, Illinois, The Plebes sought to enter a battle-of-the-bands competition but needed another high school student as a member to perform. They invited Jeff Tweedy, a high school friend of Jay Farrar, to join the band and play with them for the show. Despite a lack of skill with his instrument, Tweedy played an important role in the band by booking early gigs. While The Plebes had been playing music in a rockabilly style, Tweedy wanted to play punk rock like the music that he originally heard the group perform. This caused tensions between Tweedy and Dade Farrar, who left the band two months after Tweedy joined.
Before leaving the band in 1984, Dade Farrar introduced its members to Mike Heidorn, the younger brother of his girlfriend; Heidorn then joined the group as their drummer. The Plebes then decided to change its name to The Primitives, a reference to a 1965 song by psychedelic rock group The Groupies. Due to the unpopularity of punk rock in the St. Louis area, The Primitives began to play blues-oriented garage rock at fast tempos. They performed regularly at a wedding hall in Millstadt, Illinois, where Tweedy's mother Jo Ann would collect the cover fee. They also performed regularly at B St Bar in Belleville with bands such as The Newsboys (later Sammy and the Snowmonkeys), Charlie Langrehr, and The Symptoms. Wade Farrar was the lead singer of the band, but his commitment to Southern Illinois University and an attempted enlistment in the United States Army meant he was only able to dedicate a small amount of time to the group. Additionally, Heidorn broke his collarbone during a concert in 1986, which caused the band to go on hiatus. Jay Farrar and Tweedy continued to write songs and perform at Heidorn's house while he recovered, and by 1987 they had restarted the group. The Primitives temporarily added Tony Mayr as a bassist so that Tweedy could play guitar, but a month later the band decided to keep Tweedy on bass and remain a three-piece. To avoid confusion with a successful British band also named The Primitives, they decided to change their name once again, to Uncle Tupelo. Although they performed only 1960s cover songs as The Primitives, the trio decided to take a new approach and write their own music under their new name.
Early career
The Primitives renamed itself Uncle Tupelo after a character in a cartoon drawn by Chuck Wagner, a friend of the band's members. The name was created by combining two randomly chosen words from the dictionary; inspired by the name, Wagner drew a picture of an old, fat Elvis. The trio recorded a four-song demo tape, which won them supporting roles at the concerts of artists such as Johnny Thunders and Warren Zevon. Tweedy met Tony Margherita while moonlighting as a record clerk in St. Louis. After attending a pair of the band's concerts, Margherita offered to become its manager. Uncle Tupelo began to play regular shows at Cicero's Basement—a bar close to the campus of Washington University. Bands playing in a similar style, including Brian Henneman's Chicken Truck, often played at the venue, which by late 1988 was considered to have been the origin of a new music scene. The band temporarily expanded to a four-piece with the addition of the guitarist Alex Mutrux, but soon reverted to a trio.
Uncle Tupelo recorded its first tracks in the attic studio of future Chicago punk producer Matt Allison in Champaign, Illinois. The demo Not Forever, Just for Now includes the songs "I Got Drunk" and "Screen Door", as well as early versions of several songs that would appear on their first studio album. The CMJ New Music Report gave the tape a rave review, and called Uncle Tupelo the best unsigned band of the year. The accolade attracted the attention of independent labels, and the band decided to sign with Jay Fialkov and Debbie Southwood-Smith of Giant Records (who offered to book them at CBGB in New York City). Explaining the decision, the band said that "[our] original goals don't get distorted with an independent label."
Recordings on Rockville Records
Shortly after Uncle Tupelo's signing, Giant Records changed its name to Rockville Records. The band's first album for Rockville, No Depression, was recorded over ten days in January 1990, at Fort Apache South recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts. The album's thematic structure revolved around their lives as adolescents in Belleville; examples are songs about wanting to avoid factory work and songs about fearing a potential Persian Gulf War military draft. Impressed by their previous work on Dinosaur Jr.'s Bug, the band wanted Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to produce the album. Slade let Farrar play on the same 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior that J. Mascis originally played on Bug. The album was released on June 21, 1990, and the band celebrated by playing at Cicero's for two nights.
In between tours, Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn formed a country cover band named Coffee Creek, along with Brian Henneman (later a member of The Bottle Rockets). Henneman impressed Uncle Tupelo, and he was invited to be a guitar technician and occasional multi-instrumentalist for the band. While Farrar and Heidorn would avoid drinking too much after shows, Tweedy would continue drinking throughout the night. Although Tweedy stopped after he began dating Sue Miller in 1991, a significant communication gap had already been opened between Tweedy and Farrar.
By March 1991, No Depression had sold an estimated 15,000 copies, and was featured in a Rolling Stone article about rising stars. However, Rockville Records refused to pay the band any royalties for the album, a theme that would continue for the remainder of the band's contract. Over seventeen days the band recorded a second album at Long View Farm in rural North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Still Feel Gone, with a more layered sound, was also produced by Kolderie and Slade, with contributions by Slade, Henneman, Rich Gilbert, Chris Bess of Enormous Richard, and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks. The band was disappointed with the production of the album and decided to discontinue working with Kolderie and Slade. Soon afterward, Uncle Tupelo recorded "Shaking Hands (Soldier's Joy)" on Michelle Shocked's album Arkansas Traveler and joined her on the accompanying tour with Taj Mahal and The Band. However, the tour only lasted for a few shows because of managerial problems between Shocked and The Band.
Alternative rock had broken into the mainstream by 1992, and an album released in that style was expected to earn the group a major-label record deal. However, Uncle Tupelo did not want to follow in the footsteps of groups such as Nirvana, and decided to play country and folk songs "as a big 'fuck you' to the rock scene". Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M., saw the trio perform at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia and sought them out after the show. Buck was impressed with a version of "Atomic Power" that the band played, and offered his services for their next album. Over a span of five days, Buck produced the group's next album, March 16–20, 1992. Buck allowed them to stay in his house during the sessions, and charged no money for his services. Henneman's role was increased for this album, and he taught himself how to play mandolin and bouzouki. Despite turning away from the style of popular alternative rock, major labels began to show significant interest in Uncle Tupelo after March 16–20, 1992 was released. The album sold more than their two previous recordings combined, although Rockville was displeased that it did not conform to the style of popular alternative rock.
Major label contract
In 1992, Joe McEwen of Sire Records began to pursue the band. McEwen, who brought notable acts such as Dinosaur Jr. and Shawn Colvin to Sire, had been interested in them since hearing the Not Forever, Just for Now demo tape. At the urging of Gary Louris, McEwen offered Uncle Tupelo a contract. Band manager Tony Margherita invoked the $50,000 escape clause he had put in their Rockville contract, freeing the band to sign a seven-year deal with Sire. The deal required two albums and specified a budget of $150,000 for the first.
Around the time of the recording of March 16–20, 1992, Mike Heidorn had secured a steady job at a Belleville newspaper company and was dating a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. Uncle Tupelo had planned a tour of Europe, but Heidorn wanted to stay in Belleville with his girlfriend, whom he married in August 1992.
The band held auditions prior to the promotional tour for March 16–20, 1992, and two candidates stood out: Bill Belzer and Ken Coomer. Although Farrar and Tweedy agreed that Coomer was the better drummer, they were intimidated by his six-foot-four stature and long dreadlocks. The band instead selected Belzer as Heidorn's replacement, but he only stayed with the band for six months. Tweedy explained Belzer's departure:
I want to believe it was purely musical, and I honestly believe that it wasn't working musically. I also believe that we weren't emotionally mature enough to be close friends with a gay person at that point in our lives ... And Bill was and is a very proud and righteous gay person, very open about his homosexuality.
After touring Europe opening for Sugar, the band replaced Belzer with Coomer. The band also experimented with new members: John Stirratt replaced Brian Henneman (who left to form The Bottle Rockets) while Max Johnston, the brother of Michelle Shocked, joined as a live mandolin and violin performer. Stirratt became the full-time bassist, allowing Tweedy to perform more songs with the guitar.
Now a five-piece, Uncle Tupelo recorded their major label debut at Cedar Creek studio in Austin, Texas in early 1993. Anodyne consisted of live-in-the-studio recordings and included a duet with Farrar and Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet. The album sold 150,000 copies, and was their only entry on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The group toured until the end of the year, finishing with a sold-out concert at Tramps in New York City. Because of their concert draw, major executives at Sire began to see the band as a potential hit.
In 1993, the band contributed a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's track "Effigy" to the AIDS-Benefit album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Breakup
With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled:
Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore.
Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and did not want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record."
Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, rather than directly from Farrar. The following day, the two engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita, who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running, Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy.
Uncle Tupelo's last concerts, two shows at The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri and two shows at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, took place from April 28 to May 1, 1994. A special "last leg" poster was created for the occasion which facetiously promoted the band as "St. Louis's 4th best country band", based on a readers' poll in the Riverfront Times. On the last night, Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore.
Post-breakup
Following Uncle Tupelo's final tour, Tweedy encouraged his bandmates to join him in a new group, while Farrar searched for members for a band of his own. Tweedy was able to retain the rest of the Uncle Tupelo lineup, and created Wilco. They began rehearsing a few days after the final Uncle Tupelo concert, and by August 1994 they were in the recording studio for their first album, A.M.. Farrar asked Jim Boquist to join his new band, Son Volt; Boquist was a multi-instrumentalist who had performed with Joe Henry as the opening act on Uncle Tupelo's last tour. Boquist also recruited his brother Dave, and Farrar convinced Mike Heidorn to leave Belleville to join the group. Farrar's new four-piece began recording their debut album Trace in November 1994.
Wilco signed to Reprise Records while Son Volt signed with Warner Bros. Records. Son Volt had an early college rock hit with "Drown" from the album Trace, but Wilco maintained a more commercially successful career in the years to follow. Regarding the possibility of a reunion, Mike Heidorn reported in a PopMatters interview that "nothing's ever for sure, but I would have to say, 'No such thing'." Farrar said that he does not want the band to get back together, while Tweedy said that he believes that a reunion would not be productive musically.
Farrar and Tweedy sued Rockville Records and Dutch East India Trading CEO Barry Tenenbaum in 2000 over royalties that the label allegedly owed them, winning restitution from Tenenbaum and the joint rights to Uncle Tupelo's first three albums. After securing the rights, the band released a compilation entitled 89/93: An Anthology. In 2003, Uncle Tupelo re-issued their first three albums, which before the lawsuit had cumulatively sold over 200,000 copies.
Influences
As The Primitives, Tweedy and Farrar were highly influenced by punk bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols. However, they began to listen to country music because punk rock was not well received in the Belleville and St. Louis music scenes. While they originally were introduced to country by their parents, it was not until this time that they began to listen to it for leisure. Farrar typically wrote songs about Middle America, while Tweedy wrote about more mainstream topics such as relationships. Farrar took influence from authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac, whom he read while working at his mother's bookstore. As a singer, Farrar's lyrics would be front-and-center during performances, but the band's musical style was mostly driven by Tweedy and Heidorn. Jeff Tweedy said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
We probably have more influences than we know what to do with. We have two main styles that have been influences. For instance, we like Black Flag as much as early Bob Dylan and Dinosaur Jr. as much as Hank Williams... To us, hard-core punk is also folk music. We draw a close parallel between the two. We'll play both in the same set if we get a chance. We don't have any biases as far as music is concerned.
Tweedy in particular was inspired by the Minutemen, and wrote a song about D. Boon following Boon's death in a van accident. The band has released songs originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Carter Family, Lead Belly, Gram Parsons, The Soft Boys, The Louvin Brothers, Texas Tornados, and The Stooges. Releasing March 16–20, 1992 when alternative music was breaking through was a move inspired by Neil Young's decision to release the challenging albums On the Beach and Tonight's the Night immediately after the commercially successful Harvest. Critic Michael Corcoran likened the band's musical style to "Bob Mould fronting Soul Asylum on a speeded-up version of a Gram Parsons song."
Legacy
Uncle Tupelo is credited as one of the founders of the alternative country genre, a blend of alternative rock and traditional country music. While the genre eventually became associated with solo artists such as Gram Parsons and Lyle Lovett, Uncle Tupelo is considered the first alternative country band. Some media outlets like the BBC have even suggested that they were the genre's sole creator. However, Tweedy and Heidorn dispute this claim, and Farrar says that there is no difference between alternative country and other genres such as roots rock. Heidorn commented in a Country Standard Time interview:
It's strange to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned because what we were doing was in such a long line of musical history. People are wrong in starting with us and saying we started anything because we were just picking up the ball, starting with Woody Guthrie and on to the early '60s and the Flying Burrito Brothers that we were influenced by. We didn't start a genre. We contributed to a long line of fairly good music. That's the way we looked at it at the time—doing what was right for the song.
The band's first three albums influenced contemporary roots rock artists such as Richmond Fontaine and Whiskeytown. Uncle Tupelo's usage of distorted guitars to play a style of music that was known for its earnestness became a lasting trend in 1990s modern rock. Jason Ankeny wrote in AllMusic that:
With the release of their 1990 debut LP, No Depression, the Belleville, IL, trio Uncle Tupelo launched more than simply their own career—by fusing the simplicity and honesty of country music with the bracing fury of punk, they kick-started a revolution which reverberated throughout the American underground.
Their 1990 album No Depression lent its name to an influential alternative country periodical. Due to the influence of the album and periodical, the term "No Depression" became a byword for alternative country—particularly for bands with punk rock influence. The alternative country movement played an important role in the success of future traditionalist country acts such as Robbie Fulks and Shelby Lynne.
Members
Jay Farrar – vocals, guitar (1987–1994)
Mike Heidorn – drums (1987–1992)
Jeff Tweedy – vocals, bass, guitar (1987–1994)
Bill Belzer – drums (1992)
Ken Coomer – drums (1992–1994)
Max Johnston – violin, mandolin (1992–1994)
John Stirratt – bass, guitar (1992–1994)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Compilations
Demo tapes
All demo tapes are self-released on cassette.
Singles
Contributions
Uncle Tupelo also recorded a one-hour radio special that was released by Legacy Records in 2003. Legacy only distributed the CD, entitled The Long Cut: A One Hour Radio Special, to non-commercial radio stations as a way to promote the re-issues of the band's studio albums. The special is hosted by Lauren Frey and features interviews by Farrar, Tweedy, and Heidorn.
Notes
References
External links
Factory Belt: The Unofficial Uncle Tupelo Archives
Postcard From Hell Mailing List
American alternative country groups
American country rock groups
Musical groups from St. Louis
Musical groups disestablished in 1994
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups from Illinois
Wilco
1987 establishments in Illinois
Sire Records artists
Dutch East India Trading artists
Giant Records (independent) artists | true | [
"Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin is a 1958 studio album by Sarah Vaughan, of the music of George Gershwin.\n\nVaughan would release another all-Gershwin album, Gershwin Live!, in 1982.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Isn't It a Pity?\" – 3:53\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 3:10\n \"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise\" (Buddy De Sylva, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 2:39\n \"Someone to Watch over Me\" – 3:58\n \"Bidin' My Time\" – 3:01\n \"The Man I Love\" – 3:34\n \"How Long Has This Been Going On?\" – 3:58\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 3:13\n \"Lorelei\" – 2:32\n \"I've Got a Crush on You\" – 4:00\n \"Summertime\" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) – 2:51\n \"Aren't You Kinda Glad We Did?\" – 3:27\n \"They All Laughed\" – 2:23\n \"Looking For a Boy\" – 3:38\n \"He Loves and She Loves\" – 3:24\n \"My Man's Gone Now\" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin, Heyward) – 4:22\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" (DeSylva, G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 3:24\n \"A Foggy Day\" – 3:24\n \"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off\" – 2:22\n \"Things Are Looking Up\" – 3:33\n \"Do It Again\" (DeSylva, I. Gershwin) – 3:13\n \"Love Walked In\" – 3:06\n 1999 Cd reissue bonus tracks not included on the original 1958 release:\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 3:23\n \"Summertime\" \t\n \"Things Are Looking Up\" – 3:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" (Buddy DeSylva, G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 0:18\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 3:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 1:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 2:50\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 7:49\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 1:35\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 2:25\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 2:16\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 4:02\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 1:47\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 3:11\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 4:34\n\nAll songs composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, unless otherwise indicated.\n\nPersonnel \n Sarah Vaughan – vocals\n Hal Mooney – arranger\n\nReferences\n\n1958 albums\nSarah Vaughan albums\nAlbums arranged by Hal Mooney\nEmArcy Records albums\nAlbums produced by Bob Shad",
"\"Megan's Piano\" is a song by American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, released on October 29, 2021, as track six from her compilation album Something for Thee Hotties. It was written by Megan, alongside frequent producer LilJuMadeDaBeat, with Megan earning her first producer credit for playing and composing the song's piano riff. The song was noted for Megan's vintage, \"hard-hitting\" bars and the \"stabbing\" piano riff. It impacted rhythmic and urban radio on November 30, 2021, as the second single from Something for Thee Hotties.\n\nBackground and composition\n\"Megan's Piano\" was one of several songs added to the album just hours before its release. Megan Thee Stallion explained that although she is not a professional piano player, she just played the melodies on a piano because she knew the sound she was going for. As she was playing around with the keys, she asked her producer LilJuMadeDaBeat to make a beat out of it; this can be heard in the song's intro as the two go back and forth in trying to combine the piano with the beat.\nThe song features \"vintage\" Meg bars over what was described as an \"uncharacteristically minimal\" Lil Ju beat, which contains a \"stabbing\" piano and a \"bouncy\" bassline, as Megan references a Nike deal she just closed, among other things.\n\nCritical reception\nIn their album review, Pitchforks Dylan Green said \"the run of tracks from 'Megan's Piano' to 'Pipe Up' has the buzzy energy of a marathon studio session\". Njera Perkins of PopSugar named it among the songs on the album that shows Megan's \"hard-hitting bars are back in full force\".\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2021 songs\n2021 singles\nMegan Thee Stallion songs\nSongs written by Megan Thee Stallion"
]
|
[
"Uncle Tupelo",
"Breakup",
"what caused thee beaak up",
"Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend,"
]
| C_eea056c49cca401a93366614591e197d_1 | when did they break up | 2 | when did Uncle Tupelo break up? | Uncle Tupelo | With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled: Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore. Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and didn't want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record." Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, since Farrar decided not to tell him in person. The following day, the two singers engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita--who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running--Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo's last concert was May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore. CANNOTANSWER | In January 1994, | Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt with Heidorn, while the remaining members continued as Wilco.
Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and was widely influential. Uncle Tupelo's sound was unlike popular country music of the time, drawing inspiration from styles as diverse as the hardcore punk of The Minutemen and the country instrumentation and harmony of the Carter Family and Hank Williams. Farrar and Tweedy's lyrics frequently referred to Middle America and the working class of Belleville.
History
The Plebes and The Primitives
Jay Farrar, along with his brothers Wade and Dade, played in an early 1980s garage band named The Plebes. Hailing from Belleville, Illinois, The Plebes sought to enter a battle-of-the-bands competition but needed another high school student as a member to perform. They invited Jeff Tweedy, a high school friend of Jay Farrar, to join the band and play with them for the show. Despite a lack of skill with his instrument, Tweedy played an important role in the band by booking early gigs. While The Plebes had been playing music in a rockabilly style, Tweedy wanted to play punk rock like the music that he originally heard the group perform. This caused tensions between Tweedy and Dade Farrar, who left the band two months after Tweedy joined.
Before leaving the band in 1984, Dade Farrar introduced its members to Mike Heidorn, the younger brother of his girlfriend; Heidorn then joined the group as their drummer. The Plebes then decided to change its name to The Primitives, a reference to a 1965 song by psychedelic rock group The Groupies. Due to the unpopularity of punk rock in the St. Louis area, The Primitives began to play blues-oriented garage rock at fast tempos. They performed regularly at a wedding hall in Millstadt, Illinois, where Tweedy's mother Jo Ann would collect the cover fee. They also performed regularly at B St Bar in Belleville with bands such as The Newsboys (later Sammy and the Snowmonkeys), Charlie Langrehr, and The Symptoms. Wade Farrar was the lead singer of the band, but his commitment to Southern Illinois University and an attempted enlistment in the United States Army meant he was only able to dedicate a small amount of time to the group. Additionally, Heidorn broke his collarbone during a concert in 1986, which caused the band to go on hiatus. Jay Farrar and Tweedy continued to write songs and perform at Heidorn's house while he recovered, and by 1987 they had restarted the group. The Primitives temporarily added Tony Mayr as a bassist so that Tweedy could play guitar, but a month later the band decided to keep Tweedy on bass and remain a three-piece. To avoid confusion with a successful British band also named The Primitives, they decided to change their name once again, to Uncle Tupelo. Although they performed only 1960s cover songs as The Primitives, the trio decided to take a new approach and write their own music under their new name.
Early career
The Primitives renamed itself Uncle Tupelo after a character in a cartoon drawn by Chuck Wagner, a friend of the band's members. The name was created by combining two randomly chosen words from the dictionary; inspired by the name, Wagner drew a picture of an old, fat Elvis. The trio recorded a four-song demo tape, which won them supporting roles at the concerts of artists such as Johnny Thunders and Warren Zevon. Tweedy met Tony Margherita while moonlighting as a record clerk in St. Louis. After attending a pair of the band's concerts, Margherita offered to become its manager. Uncle Tupelo began to play regular shows at Cicero's Basement—a bar close to the campus of Washington University. Bands playing in a similar style, including Brian Henneman's Chicken Truck, often played at the venue, which by late 1988 was considered to have been the origin of a new music scene. The band temporarily expanded to a four-piece with the addition of the guitarist Alex Mutrux, but soon reverted to a trio.
Uncle Tupelo recorded its first tracks in the attic studio of future Chicago punk producer Matt Allison in Champaign, Illinois. The demo Not Forever, Just for Now includes the songs "I Got Drunk" and "Screen Door", as well as early versions of several songs that would appear on their first studio album. The CMJ New Music Report gave the tape a rave review, and called Uncle Tupelo the best unsigned band of the year. The accolade attracted the attention of independent labels, and the band decided to sign with Jay Fialkov and Debbie Southwood-Smith of Giant Records (who offered to book them at CBGB in New York City). Explaining the decision, the band said that "[our] original goals don't get distorted with an independent label."
Recordings on Rockville Records
Shortly after Uncle Tupelo's signing, Giant Records changed its name to Rockville Records. The band's first album for Rockville, No Depression, was recorded over ten days in January 1990, at Fort Apache South recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts. The album's thematic structure revolved around their lives as adolescents in Belleville; examples are songs about wanting to avoid factory work and songs about fearing a potential Persian Gulf War military draft. Impressed by their previous work on Dinosaur Jr.'s Bug, the band wanted Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to produce the album. Slade let Farrar play on the same 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior that J. Mascis originally played on Bug. The album was released on June 21, 1990, and the band celebrated by playing at Cicero's for two nights.
In between tours, Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn formed a country cover band named Coffee Creek, along with Brian Henneman (later a member of The Bottle Rockets). Henneman impressed Uncle Tupelo, and he was invited to be a guitar technician and occasional multi-instrumentalist for the band. While Farrar and Heidorn would avoid drinking too much after shows, Tweedy would continue drinking throughout the night. Although Tweedy stopped after he began dating Sue Miller in 1991, a significant communication gap had already been opened between Tweedy and Farrar.
By March 1991, No Depression had sold an estimated 15,000 copies, and was featured in a Rolling Stone article about rising stars. However, Rockville Records refused to pay the band any royalties for the album, a theme that would continue for the remainder of the band's contract. Over seventeen days the band recorded a second album at Long View Farm in rural North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Still Feel Gone, with a more layered sound, was also produced by Kolderie and Slade, with contributions by Slade, Henneman, Rich Gilbert, Chris Bess of Enormous Richard, and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks. The band was disappointed with the production of the album and decided to discontinue working with Kolderie and Slade. Soon afterward, Uncle Tupelo recorded "Shaking Hands (Soldier's Joy)" on Michelle Shocked's album Arkansas Traveler and joined her on the accompanying tour with Taj Mahal and The Band. However, the tour only lasted for a few shows because of managerial problems between Shocked and The Band.
Alternative rock had broken into the mainstream by 1992, and an album released in that style was expected to earn the group a major-label record deal. However, Uncle Tupelo did not want to follow in the footsteps of groups such as Nirvana, and decided to play country and folk songs "as a big 'fuck you' to the rock scene". Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M., saw the trio perform at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia and sought them out after the show. Buck was impressed with a version of "Atomic Power" that the band played, and offered his services for their next album. Over a span of five days, Buck produced the group's next album, March 16–20, 1992. Buck allowed them to stay in his house during the sessions, and charged no money for his services. Henneman's role was increased for this album, and he taught himself how to play mandolin and bouzouki. Despite turning away from the style of popular alternative rock, major labels began to show significant interest in Uncle Tupelo after March 16–20, 1992 was released. The album sold more than their two previous recordings combined, although Rockville was displeased that it did not conform to the style of popular alternative rock.
Major label contract
In 1992, Joe McEwen of Sire Records began to pursue the band. McEwen, who brought notable acts such as Dinosaur Jr. and Shawn Colvin to Sire, had been interested in them since hearing the Not Forever, Just for Now demo tape. At the urging of Gary Louris, McEwen offered Uncle Tupelo a contract. Band manager Tony Margherita invoked the $50,000 escape clause he had put in their Rockville contract, freeing the band to sign a seven-year deal with Sire. The deal required two albums and specified a budget of $150,000 for the first.
Around the time of the recording of March 16–20, 1992, Mike Heidorn had secured a steady job at a Belleville newspaper company and was dating a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. Uncle Tupelo had planned a tour of Europe, but Heidorn wanted to stay in Belleville with his girlfriend, whom he married in August 1992.
The band held auditions prior to the promotional tour for March 16–20, 1992, and two candidates stood out: Bill Belzer and Ken Coomer. Although Farrar and Tweedy agreed that Coomer was the better drummer, they were intimidated by his six-foot-four stature and long dreadlocks. The band instead selected Belzer as Heidorn's replacement, but he only stayed with the band for six months. Tweedy explained Belzer's departure:
I want to believe it was purely musical, and I honestly believe that it wasn't working musically. I also believe that we weren't emotionally mature enough to be close friends with a gay person at that point in our lives ... And Bill was and is a very proud and righteous gay person, very open about his homosexuality.
After touring Europe opening for Sugar, the band replaced Belzer with Coomer. The band also experimented with new members: John Stirratt replaced Brian Henneman (who left to form The Bottle Rockets) while Max Johnston, the brother of Michelle Shocked, joined as a live mandolin and violin performer. Stirratt became the full-time bassist, allowing Tweedy to perform more songs with the guitar.
Now a five-piece, Uncle Tupelo recorded their major label debut at Cedar Creek studio in Austin, Texas in early 1993. Anodyne consisted of live-in-the-studio recordings and included a duet with Farrar and Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet. The album sold 150,000 copies, and was their only entry on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The group toured until the end of the year, finishing with a sold-out concert at Tramps in New York City. Because of their concert draw, major executives at Sire began to see the band as a potential hit.
In 1993, the band contributed a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's track "Effigy" to the AIDS-Benefit album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Breakup
With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled:
Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore.
Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and did not want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record."
Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, rather than directly from Farrar. The following day, the two engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita, who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running, Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy.
Uncle Tupelo's last concerts, two shows at The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri and two shows at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, took place from April 28 to May 1, 1994. A special "last leg" poster was created for the occasion which facetiously promoted the band as "St. Louis's 4th best country band", based on a readers' poll in the Riverfront Times. On the last night, Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore.
Post-breakup
Following Uncle Tupelo's final tour, Tweedy encouraged his bandmates to join him in a new group, while Farrar searched for members for a band of his own. Tweedy was able to retain the rest of the Uncle Tupelo lineup, and created Wilco. They began rehearsing a few days after the final Uncle Tupelo concert, and by August 1994 they were in the recording studio for their first album, A.M.. Farrar asked Jim Boquist to join his new band, Son Volt; Boquist was a multi-instrumentalist who had performed with Joe Henry as the opening act on Uncle Tupelo's last tour. Boquist also recruited his brother Dave, and Farrar convinced Mike Heidorn to leave Belleville to join the group. Farrar's new four-piece began recording their debut album Trace in November 1994.
Wilco signed to Reprise Records while Son Volt signed with Warner Bros. Records. Son Volt had an early college rock hit with "Drown" from the album Trace, but Wilco maintained a more commercially successful career in the years to follow. Regarding the possibility of a reunion, Mike Heidorn reported in a PopMatters interview that "nothing's ever for sure, but I would have to say, 'No such thing'." Farrar said that he does not want the band to get back together, while Tweedy said that he believes that a reunion would not be productive musically.
Farrar and Tweedy sued Rockville Records and Dutch East India Trading CEO Barry Tenenbaum in 2000 over royalties that the label allegedly owed them, winning restitution from Tenenbaum and the joint rights to Uncle Tupelo's first three albums. After securing the rights, the band released a compilation entitled 89/93: An Anthology. In 2003, Uncle Tupelo re-issued their first three albums, which before the lawsuit had cumulatively sold over 200,000 copies.
Influences
As The Primitives, Tweedy and Farrar were highly influenced by punk bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols. However, they began to listen to country music because punk rock was not well received in the Belleville and St. Louis music scenes. While they originally were introduced to country by their parents, it was not until this time that they began to listen to it for leisure. Farrar typically wrote songs about Middle America, while Tweedy wrote about more mainstream topics such as relationships. Farrar took influence from authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac, whom he read while working at his mother's bookstore. As a singer, Farrar's lyrics would be front-and-center during performances, but the band's musical style was mostly driven by Tweedy and Heidorn. Jeff Tweedy said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
We probably have more influences than we know what to do with. We have two main styles that have been influences. For instance, we like Black Flag as much as early Bob Dylan and Dinosaur Jr. as much as Hank Williams... To us, hard-core punk is also folk music. We draw a close parallel between the two. We'll play both in the same set if we get a chance. We don't have any biases as far as music is concerned.
Tweedy in particular was inspired by the Minutemen, and wrote a song about D. Boon following Boon's death in a van accident. The band has released songs originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Carter Family, Lead Belly, Gram Parsons, The Soft Boys, The Louvin Brothers, Texas Tornados, and The Stooges. Releasing March 16–20, 1992 when alternative music was breaking through was a move inspired by Neil Young's decision to release the challenging albums On the Beach and Tonight's the Night immediately after the commercially successful Harvest. Critic Michael Corcoran likened the band's musical style to "Bob Mould fronting Soul Asylum on a speeded-up version of a Gram Parsons song."
Legacy
Uncle Tupelo is credited as one of the founders of the alternative country genre, a blend of alternative rock and traditional country music. While the genre eventually became associated with solo artists such as Gram Parsons and Lyle Lovett, Uncle Tupelo is considered the first alternative country band. Some media outlets like the BBC have even suggested that they were the genre's sole creator. However, Tweedy and Heidorn dispute this claim, and Farrar says that there is no difference between alternative country and other genres such as roots rock. Heidorn commented in a Country Standard Time interview:
It's strange to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned because what we were doing was in such a long line of musical history. People are wrong in starting with us and saying we started anything because we were just picking up the ball, starting with Woody Guthrie and on to the early '60s and the Flying Burrito Brothers that we were influenced by. We didn't start a genre. We contributed to a long line of fairly good music. That's the way we looked at it at the time—doing what was right for the song.
The band's first three albums influenced contemporary roots rock artists such as Richmond Fontaine and Whiskeytown. Uncle Tupelo's usage of distorted guitars to play a style of music that was known for its earnestness became a lasting trend in 1990s modern rock. Jason Ankeny wrote in AllMusic that:
With the release of their 1990 debut LP, No Depression, the Belleville, IL, trio Uncle Tupelo launched more than simply their own career—by fusing the simplicity and honesty of country music with the bracing fury of punk, they kick-started a revolution which reverberated throughout the American underground.
Their 1990 album No Depression lent its name to an influential alternative country periodical. Due to the influence of the album and periodical, the term "No Depression" became a byword for alternative country—particularly for bands with punk rock influence. The alternative country movement played an important role in the success of future traditionalist country acts such as Robbie Fulks and Shelby Lynne.
Members
Jay Farrar – vocals, guitar (1987–1994)
Mike Heidorn – drums (1987–1992)
Jeff Tweedy – vocals, bass, guitar (1987–1994)
Bill Belzer – drums (1992)
Ken Coomer – drums (1992–1994)
Max Johnston – violin, mandolin (1992–1994)
John Stirratt – bass, guitar (1992–1994)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Compilations
Demo tapes
All demo tapes are self-released on cassette.
Singles
Contributions
Uncle Tupelo also recorded a one-hour radio special that was released by Legacy Records in 2003. Legacy only distributed the CD, entitled The Long Cut: A One Hour Radio Special, to non-commercial radio stations as a way to promote the re-issues of the band's studio albums. The special is hosted by Lauren Frey and features interviews by Farrar, Tweedy, and Heidorn.
Notes
References
External links
Factory Belt: The Unofficial Uncle Tupelo Archives
Postcard From Hell Mailing List
American alternative country groups
American country rock groups
Musical groups from St. Louis
Musical groups disestablished in 1994
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups from Illinois
Wilco
1987 establishments in Illinois
Sire Records artists
Dutch East India Trading artists
Giant Records (independent) artists | true | [
"Matthias Kirste (born near Berlin), is a German cinematographer.\n\nInternationally, Kirste is mainly known for his work on the feature-films by Alexander Tuschinski. They met when they both studied at Hochschule der Medien. Since then, they often collaborated, and both share the cinematographer-credit, either of them taking turns at operating the camera depending on the scene.\n\nLife \n\nKirste got his first film camera when he was 15 years old and did his first photographic and filmic projects as a teenager. After serving in a PsyOps unit of the German military for a number of years, he started working as a freelance photographer and cinematographer.\n\nNotable works \n2010: Menschenliebe\n2011: Mutant Calculator (short film)\n2012: Hollow Date (short film)\n2014: Break-Up\n2016: Timeless\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n Making-Of documentary about \"Break-Up\". (Video)\n \n\nLiving people\nGerman cinematographers\nFilm people from Berlin\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Fast break is an offensive strategy in basketball and handball. In a fast break, a team attempts to move the ball up court and into scoring position as quickly as possible, so that the defense is outnumbered and does not have time to set up. The various styles of the fast break–derivative of the original created by Frank Keaney–are seen as the best method of providing action and quick scores. A fast break may result from cherry picking.\n\nDescription\nIn a typical fast-break situation, the defending team obtains the ball and passes it to the fastest player, who sets up the fast break. That player (usually the smaller point guard, in the case of basketball) then speed-dribbles the ball up the court with several players trailing on the wings. He then either passes it to another player for quick scoring or takes the shot himself. If contact is made between him and a defender from behind while on a fast break, an unsportsmanlike foul is called. Recognition, speed, ball-handling skills, and decision making are critical to the success of a fast break.\n\nIn basketball, fast breaks are often the result of good defensive play such as a steal, obtaining the ball off a block, or a missed shot by the opposing team and a rebound, where the defending team takes possession of the ball and the other team has not adjusted.\n\nA fast break can sometimes lead to an alley-oop if there are more offensive players than defenders.\n\nIn basketball, if the fast break did not lead to a basket and an offensive rebound is obtained and put back quickly, this is called a secondary break.\n\nFly fast break\n\nA fly fast break (also known as a one out fast break, the technical term for the play) is a basketball move in which after a shot is attempted, the player who is guarding the shooter does not box out or rebound but instead runs down the court looking for a pass from a rebounding teammate for a quick score.\n\nHow to play the Fly fast break\nThe coach designates a certain guard or guards to carry out the Fly fast break. This is often the guard that defends the opponents' shooting guard. When the designated opposing guard makes an attempted shot. The defending guard (referred to as 'Fly') will contest the shot but then sprints down the court to the other team's key. When the defending team obtains the rebound or has to inbound the ball (after a made basket), they throw the ball into the other team's key, knowing that there is a 'Fly' waiting to catch the ball and score.\n\nStrengths\n Defeats the zone - the other team doesn't have time to set up their zone defense.\n Removes a rebounder - because the shooter has to defend against the Fly, they are removed from rebounding.\n Upsets the shooter - because the shooter has to worry about defense, they are less focused on their shooting.\n\nWeaknesses\n Rebounding weakness - The Fly's team is left with a 4 against 5 rebounding ratio, if the shooter stays to rebound.\n Inbounding - If a shooter scores, the inbounding set up takes longer and the distance to throw the ball is harder.\n Exhausting - The Fly has to sprint on offense, but has to hustle back on defense if the Fly fast break fails.\n\nBreaking Down the Fly fast break\nBreaking down the Fly fast break can be done in two ways:\n Have a confident shooter who can score and force the defending team to inbound while the shooter hustles back to defend against the Fly.\n Use non-shooting plays, where the #4 & #5 forwards do the scoring.\n\nNotes\nThe 'Fly' is a term in fly fishing where the actions of this type of fishing are similar to the actions of the basketball player in Fly fast break.\n\nReferences\n\nhttps://www.uri.edu/anniversary/stories/frank-keaney-and-the-old-gazazza/\n\nFurther reading\n\nBasketball terminology\nBasketball strategy\nHandball terminology"
]
|
[
"Uncle Tupelo",
"Breakup",
"what caused thee beaak up",
"Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend,",
"when did they break up",
"In January 1994,"
]
| C_eea056c49cca401a93366614591e197d_1 | what do they do after break up | 3 | what did the members of Uncle Tupelodo do after the break up? | Uncle Tupelo | With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled: Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore. Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and didn't want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record." Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, since Farrar decided not to tell him in person. The following day, the two singers engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita--who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running--Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo's last concert was May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore. CANNOTANSWER | Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore. | Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt with Heidorn, while the remaining members continued as Wilco.
Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and was widely influential. Uncle Tupelo's sound was unlike popular country music of the time, drawing inspiration from styles as diverse as the hardcore punk of The Minutemen and the country instrumentation and harmony of the Carter Family and Hank Williams. Farrar and Tweedy's lyrics frequently referred to Middle America and the working class of Belleville.
History
The Plebes and The Primitives
Jay Farrar, along with his brothers Wade and Dade, played in an early 1980s garage band named The Plebes. Hailing from Belleville, Illinois, The Plebes sought to enter a battle-of-the-bands competition but needed another high school student as a member to perform. They invited Jeff Tweedy, a high school friend of Jay Farrar, to join the band and play with them for the show. Despite a lack of skill with his instrument, Tweedy played an important role in the band by booking early gigs. While The Plebes had been playing music in a rockabilly style, Tweedy wanted to play punk rock like the music that he originally heard the group perform. This caused tensions between Tweedy and Dade Farrar, who left the band two months after Tweedy joined.
Before leaving the band in 1984, Dade Farrar introduced its members to Mike Heidorn, the younger brother of his girlfriend; Heidorn then joined the group as their drummer. The Plebes then decided to change its name to The Primitives, a reference to a 1965 song by psychedelic rock group The Groupies. Due to the unpopularity of punk rock in the St. Louis area, The Primitives began to play blues-oriented garage rock at fast tempos. They performed regularly at a wedding hall in Millstadt, Illinois, where Tweedy's mother Jo Ann would collect the cover fee. They also performed regularly at B St Bar in Belleville with bands such as The Newsboys (later Sammy and the Snowmonkeys), Charlie Langrehr, and The Symptoms. Wade Farrar was the lead singer of the band, but his commitment to Southern Illinois University and an attempted enlistment in the United States Army meant he was only able to dedicate a small amount of time to the group. Additionally, Heidorn broke his collarbone during a concert in 1986, which caused the band to go on hiatus. Jay Farrar and Tweedy continued to write songs and perform at Heidorn's house while he recovered, and by 1987 they had restarted the group. The Primitives temporarily added Tony Mayr as a bassist so that Tweedy could play guitar, but a month later the band decided to keep Tweedy on bass and remain a three-piece. To avoid confusion with a successful British band also named The Primitives, they decided to change their name once again, to Uncle Tupelo. Although they performed only 1960s cover songs as The Primitives, the trio decided to take a new approach and write their own music under their new name.
Early career
The Primitives renamed itself Uncle Tupelo after a character in a cartoon drawn by Chuck Wagner, a friend of the band's members. The name was created by combining two randomly chosen words from the dictionary; inspired by the name, Wagner drew a picture of an old, fat Elvis. The trio recorded a four-song demo tape, which won them supporting roles at the concerts of artists such as Johnny Thunders and Warren Zevon. Tweedy met Tony Margherita while moonlighting as a record clerk in St. Louis. After attending a pair of the band's concerts, Margherita offered to become its manager. Uncle Tupelo began to play regular shows at Cicero's Basement—a bar close to the campus of Washington University. Bands playing in a similar style, including Brian Henneman's Chicken Truck, often played at the venue, which by late 1988 was considered to have been the origin of a new music scene. The band temporarily expanded to a four-piece with the addition of the guitarist Alex Mutrux, but soon reverted to a trio.
Uncle Tupelo recorded its first tracks in the attic studio of future Chicago punk producer Matt Allison in Champaign, Illinois. The demo Not Forever, Just for Now includes the songs "I Got Drunk" and "Screen Door", as well as early versions of several songs that would appear on their first studio album. The CMJ New Music Report gave the tape a rave review, and called Uncle Tupelo the best unsigned band of the year. The accolade attracted the attention of independent labels, and the band decided to sign with Jay Fialkov and Debbie Southwood-Smith of Giant Records (who offered to book them at CBGB in New York City). Explaining the decision, the band said that "[our] original goals don't get distorted with an independent label."
Recordings on Rockville Records
Shortly after Uncle Tupelo's signing, Giant Records changed its name to Rockville Records. The band's first album for Rockville, No Depression, was recorded over ten days in January 1990, at Fort Apache South recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts. The album's thematic structure revolved around their lives as adolescents in Belleville; examples are songs about wanting to avoid factory work and songs about fearing a potential Persian Gulf War military draft. Impressed by their previous work on Dinosaur Jr.'s Bug, the band wanted Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to produce the album. Slade let Farrar play on the same 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior that J. Mascis originally played on Bug. The album was released on June 21, 1990, and the band celebrated by playing at Cicero's for two nights.
In between tours, Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn formed a country cover band named Coffee Creek, along with Brian Henneman (later a member of The Bottle Rockets). Henneman impressed Uncle Tupelo, and he was invited to be a guitar technician and occasional multi-instrumentalist for the band. While Farrar and Heidorn would avoid drinking too much after shows, Tweedy would continue drinking throughout the night. Although Tweedy stopped after he began dating Sue Miller in 1991, a significant communication gap had already been opened between Tweedy and Farrar.
By March 1991, No Depression had sold an estimated 15,000 copies, and was featured in a Rolling Stone article about rising stars. However, Rockville Records refused to pay the band any royalties for the album, a theme that would continue for the remainder of the band's contract. Over seventeen days the band recorded a second album at Long View Farm in rural North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Still Feel Gone, with a more layered sound, was also produced by Kolderie and Slade, with contributions by Slade, Henneman, Rich Gilbert, Chris Bess of Enormous Richard, and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks. The band was disappointed with the production of the album and decided to discontinue working with Kolderie and Slade. Soon afterward, Uncle Tupelo recorded "Shaking Hands (Soldier's Joy)" on Michelle Shocked's album Arkansas Traveler and joined her on the accompanying tour with Taj Mahal and The Band. However, the tour only lasted for a few shows because of managerial problems between Shocked and The Band.
Alternative rock had broken into the mainstream by 1992, and an album released in that style was expected to earn the group a major-label record deal. However, Uncle Tupelo did not want to follow in the footsteps of groups such as Nirvana, and decided to play country and folk songs "as a big 'fuck you' to the rock scene". Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M., saw the trio perform at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia and sought them out after the show. Buck was impressed with a version of "Atomic Power" that the band played, and offered his services for their next album. Over a span of five days, Buck produced the group's next album, March 16–20, 1992. Buck allowed them to stay in his house during the sessions, and charged no money for his services. Henneman's role was increased for this album, and he taught himself how to play mandolin and bouzouki. Despite turning away from the style of popular alternative rock, major labels began to show significant interest in Uncle Tupelo after March 16–20, 1992 was released. The album sold more than their two previous recordings combined, although Rockville was displeased that it did not conform to the style of popular alternative rock.
Major label contract
In 1992, Joe McEwen of Sire Records began to pursue the band. McEwen, who brought notable acts such as Dinosaur Jr. and Shawn Colvin to Sire, had been interested in them since hearing the Not Forever, Just for Now demo tape. At the urging of Gary Louris, McEwen offered Uncle Tupelo a contract. Band manager Tony Margherita invoked the $50,000 escape clause he had put in their Rockville contract, freeing the band to sign a seven-year deal with Sire. The deal required two albums and specified a budget of $150,000 for the first.
Around the time of the recording of March 16–20, 1992, Mike Heidorn had secured a steady job at a Belleville newspaper company and was dating a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. Uncle Tupelo had planned a tour of Europe, but Heidorn wanted to stay in Belleville with his girlfriend, whom he married in August 1992.
The band held auditions prior to the promotional tour for March 16–20, 1992, and two candidates stood out: Bill Belzer and Ken Coomer. Although Farrar and Tweedy agreed that Coomer was the better drummer, they were intimidated by his six-foot-four stature and long dreadlocks. The band instead selected Belzer as Heidorn's replacement, but he only stayed with the band for six months. Tweedy explained Belzer's departure:
I want to believe it was purely musical, and I honestly believe that it wasn't working musically. I also believe that we weren't emotionally mature enough to be close friends with a gay person at that point in our lives ... And Bill was and is a very proud and righteous gay person, very open about his homosexuality.
After touring Europe opening for Sugar, the band replaced Belzer with Coomer. The band also experimented with new members: John Stirratt replaced Brian Henneman (who left to form The Bottle Rockets) while Max Johnston, the brother of Michelle Shocked, joined as a live mandolin and violin performer. Stirratt became the full-time bassist, allowing Tweedy to perform more songs with the guitar.
Now a five-piece, Uncle Tupelo recorded their major label debut at Cedar Creek studio in Austin, Texas in early 1993. Anodyne consisted of live-in-the-studio recordings and included a duet with Farrar and Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet. The album sold 150,000 copies, and was their only entry on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The group toured until the end of the year, finishing with a sold-out concert at Tramps in New York City. Because of their concert draw, major executives at Sire began to see the band as a potential hit.
In 1993, the band contributed a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's track "Effigy" to the AIDS-Benefit album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Breakup
With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled:
Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore.
Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and did not want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record."
Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, rather than directly from Farrar. The following day, the two engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita, who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running, Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy.
Uncle Tupelo's last concerts, two shows at The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri and two shows at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, took place from April 28 to May 1, 1994. A special "last leg" poster was created for the occasion which facetiously promoted the band as "St. Louis's 4th best country band", based on a readers' poll in the Riverfront Times. On the last night, Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore.
Post-breakup
Following Uncle Tupelo's final tour, Tweedy encouraged his bandmates to join him in a new group, while Farrar searched for members for a band of his own. Tweedy was able to retain the rest of the Uncle Tupelo lineup, and created Wilco. They began rehearsing a few days after the final Uncle Tupelo concert, and by August 1994 they were in the recording studio for their first album, A.M.. Farrar asked Jim Boquist to join his new band, Son Volt; Boquist was a multi-instrumentalist who had performed with Joe Henry as the opening act on Uncle Tupelo's last tour. Boquist also recruited his brother Dave, and Farrar convinced Mike Heidorn to leave Belleville to join the group. Farrar's new four-piece began recording their debut album Trace in November 1994.
Wilco signed to Reprise Records while Son Volt signed with Warner Bros. Records. Son Volt had an early college rock hit with "Drown" from the album Trace, but Wilco maintained a more commercially successful career in the years to follow. Regarding the possibility of a reunion, Mike Heidorn reported in a PopMatters interview that "nothing's ever for sure, but I would have to say, 'No such thing'." Farrar said that he does not want the band to get back together, while Tweedy said that he believes that a reunion would not be productive musically.
Farrar and Tweedy sued Rockville Records and Dutch East India Trading CEO Barry Tenenbaum in 2000 over royalties that the label allegedly owed them, winning restitution from Tenenbaum and the joint rights to Uncle Tupelo's first three albums. After securing the rights, the band released a compilation entitled 89/93: An Anthology. In 2003, Uncle Tupelo re-issued their first three albums, which before the lawsuit had cumulatively sold over 200,000 copies.
Influences
As The Primitives, Tweedy and Farrar were highly influenced by punk bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols. However, they began to listen to country music because punk rock was not well received in the Belleville and St. Louis music scenes. While they originally were introduced to country by their parents, it was not until this time that they began to listen to it for leisure. Farrar typically wrote songs about Middle America, while Tweedy wrote about more mainstream topics such as relationships. Farrar took influence from authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac, whom he read while working at his mother's bookstore. As a singer, Farrar's lyrics would be front-and-center during performances, but the band's musical style was mostly driven by Tweedy and Heidorn. Jeff Tweedy said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
We probably have more influences than we know what to do with. We have two main styles that have been influences. For instance, we like Black Flag as much as early Bob Dylan and Dinosaur Jr. as much as Hank Williams... To us, hard-core punk is also folk music. We draw a close parallel between the two. We'll play both in the same set if we get a chance. We don't have any biases as far as music is concerned.
Tweedy in particular was inspired by the Minutemen, and wrote a song about D. Boon following Boon's death in a van accident. The band has released songs originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Carter Family, Lead Belly, Gram Parsons, The Soft Boys, The Louvin Brothers, Texas Tornados, and The Stooges. Releasing March 16–20, 1992 when alternative music was breaking through was a move inspired by Neil Young's decision to release the challenging albums On the Beach and Tonight's the Night immediately after the commercially successful Harvest. Critic Michael Corcoran likened the band's musical style to "Bob Mould fronting Soul Asylum on a speeded-up version of a Gram Parsons song."
Legacy
Uncle Tupelo is credited as one of the founders of the alternative country genre, a blend of alternative rock and traditional country music. While the genre eventually became associated with solo artists such as Gram Parsons and Lyle Lovett, Uncle Tupelo is considered the first alternative country band. Some media outlets like the BBC have even suggested that they were the genre's sole creator. However, Tweedy and Heidorn dispute this claim, and Farrar says that there is no difference between alternative country and other genres such as roots rock. Heidorn commented in a Country Standard Time interview:
It's strange to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned because what we were doing was in such a long line of musical history. People are wrong in starting with us and saying we started anything because we were just picking up the ball, starting with Woody Guthrie and on to the early '60s and the Flying Burrito Brothers that we were influenced by. We didn't start a genre. We contributed to a long line of fairly good music. That's the way we looked at it at the time—doing what was right for the song.
The band's first three albums influenced contemporary roots rock artists such as Richmond Fontaine and Whiskeytown. Uncle Tupelo's usage of distorted guitars to play a style of music that was known for its earnestness became a lasting trend in 1990s modern rock. Jason Ankeny wrote in AllMusic that:
With the release of their 1990 debut LP, No Depression, the Belleville, IL, trio Uncle Tupelo launched more than simply their own career—by fusing the simplicity and honesty of country music with the bracing fury of punk, they kick-started a revolution which reverberated throughout the American underground.
Their 1990 album No Depression lent its name to an influential alternative country periodical. Due to the influence of the album and periodical, the term "No Depression" became a byword for alternative country—particularly for bands with punk rock influence. The alternative country movement played an important role in the success of future traditionalist country acts such as Robbie Fulks and Shelby Lynne.
Members
Jay Farrar – vocals, guitar (1987–1994)
Mike Heidorn – drums (1987–1992)
Jeff Tweedy – vocals, bass, guitar (1987–1994)
Bill Belzer – drums (1992)
Ken Coomer – drums (1992–1994)
Max Johnston – violin, mandolin (1992–1994)
John Stirratt – bass, guitar (1992–1994)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Compilations
Demo tapes
All demo tapes are self-released on cassette.
Singles
Contributions
Uncle Tupelo also recorded a one-hour radio special that was released by Legacy Records in 2003. Legacy only distributed the CD, entitled The Long Cut: A One Hour Radio Special, to non-commercial radio stations as a way to promote the re-issues of the band's studio albums. The special is hosted by Lauren Frey and features interviews by Farrar, Tweedy, and Heidorn.
Notes
References
External links
Factory Belt: The Unofficial Uncle Tupelo Archives
Postcard From Hell Mailing List
American alternative country groups
American country rock groups
Musical groups from St. Louis
Musical groups disestablished in 1994
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups from Illinois
Wilco
1987 establishments in Illinois
Sire Records artists
Dutch East India Trading artists
Giant Records (independent) artists | true | [
"The Bob Dylan Gospel Tour was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that consisted of 79 concerts in North America in three legs, lasting from November 1, 1979 to May 21, 1980.\n\nBackground\nIn February 1978, Dylan initiated a ten-month World Tour that consisted of 114 concerts in ten countries. On June 15, Dylan released the album Street-Legal, which received poor reviews from most American critics. Performances on his world tour also received negative reviews. The physical demands of touring were also taking a toll on the artist. During a concert on November 17 in San Diego, someone from the audience threw a small silver cross on stage. Dylan later recalled in a 1979 interview: \n\nToward the end of his 1978 World Tour, Dylan began performing a new song during sound checks called \"Slow Train\"—a song with overtly Christian lyrics. During the final concert of the tour on December 16, 1978 in Hollywood, Florida, he performed another new song called \"Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others)\", with lyrics centered around a Biblical passage from Matthew 7:12, \"All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean.\"\n\nAccording to Dylan, a turning point came one night in late 1978 when he received a \"vision and a feeling\" that his born-again Christian girlfriend Mary Alice Artres believed was a \"visit from Jesus himself\". Dylan later said, \"Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it. I felt it all over me. I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up.\"\n\nArtes was not the only born-again Christian in Dylan's touring band. Steven Soles and David Mansfield were already members of the Vineyard Fellowship, a Christian organization introduced to them by guitarist T-Bone Burnett. According to bassist Rob Stoner, it was Burnette who first began talking to Dylan about Jesus and the Fellowship. Dylan also turned to Helena Springs with \"questions that no one could possibly help with\", and she encouraged him to pray. Dylan's girlfriend Artes was also a member of Vineyard Fellowship, and it was through her influence that Dylan eventually agreed to attend a three-month Bible study course with Ken Gulliksen.\n\nIn the first months of 1979, Dylan was writing songs clearly influenced by his new-found Christian faith and Bible study. Dylan initially intended to produce the songs for singer Carolyn Dennis anonymously. \"I wanted the songs out\", Dylan later recalled, \"but I didn't want to do it [myself], because I knew that it wouldn't be perceived in that way. It would just mean more pressure. I just did not want that at that time.\" Eventually Dylan decided to record the songs himself, and assembled a strong group of musicians and production people, including Mark Knopfler and Muscle Shoals veterans Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, who would co-produce the album with Dylan. Between April 30 and May 11, 1979, Dylan recorded material for a new album at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The new album of Christian songs called Slow Train Coming was released on August 20, 1979.\n\nOn October 18, 1979, Dylan and his new backing band appeared on the television show Saturday Night Live, performing three songs from the new album: \"Gotta Serve Somebody\", \"I Believe in You\", and \"When You Gonna Wake Up\". Two weeks later, on November 1, 1979, Dylan and his new band initiated a new tour with a fourteen-concert engagement at the Fox Warfield Theatre in San Francisco.\n\nDescription\n\nThe Bob Dylan Gospel Tour was unique in two respects. While Dylan had always included religious themes and allusions in his songs, this tour marked the first time that he overtly embraced Christianity as a personal faith, and discussed that faith from the stage with his audience. Also, Dylan restricted the concert setlists to include only his new Christian songs. None of his past material was included. The tour was divided into three legs over a period of seven months. The first leg included 26 concerts from November 1 to December 9. The second leg included 22 concerts from January 13 to February 9. The third leg included 29 concerts from April 17 to May 21.\n\nThe tour lineup for the first leg of the tour consisted of Bob Dylan (guitar, piano, harmonica, vocals), Spooner Oldham (keyboards, vocals), Terry Young (keyboards, vocals), Fred Tackett (guitar), Tim Drummond (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Regina Havis (vocals), Helena Springs (vocals), and Mona Lisa Young (vocals). Typically, shows opened with vocalist Regina Havis stepping to the microphone and delivering a monologue on Christian faith. She was then joined on stage by vocalist Helena Springs, pianist Terry Young, and his wife Mona Lisa Young who performed a half dozen gospel songs, such as \"If I Got My Ticket Lord\", \"It's Gonna Rain\", \"Do Lord, Remember Me\", \"Look Up And Live By Faith\", and \"Oh Freedom\".\n\nAfter a brief interlude, Dylan and his backing band emerged and performed typically a 17-song set consisting of songs from the album Slow Train Coming and additional new Christian songs, most of which would end up on his follow-up album Saved. He opened most shows with \"Gotta Serve Somebody\", \"I Believe in You\", \"When You Gonna Wake Up\", \"When He Returns\", and \"Man Gave Names to All the Animals\", and the setlists did not vary significantly from night to night. Halfway through the set, following the song \"Covenant Woman\", one of his backing vocalists would take center stage and perform a gospel song while Dylan stood to the side and listened. These songs included \"Put Your Hand in the Hand\" (sung by Regina Havis), \"What Are You Doing With Your Heart\" (sung by Helena Springs), and \"God Uses Ordinary People\" (sung by Mona Lisa Young). Most shows ended with \"Solid Rock\", \"Saving Grace\", \"Saved\", \"What Can I Do for You?\", \"In the Garden\", \"Are You Ready\", and \"Pressing On\". Dylan performed most of the songs playing a black Fender Stratocaster guitar. He performed a few songs with just a microphone, and played piano on \"When He Returns\" and \"Pressing On\". Dylan's one harmonica solo on \"What Can I Do for You?\" was one of the highlights of his shows. The first leg of the tour ended with a two-night engagement at the Music Hall in Tucson.\n\nAfter taking one month off for the Christmas holidays in Minnesota, Dylan resumed the tour on January 13, 1980 with a three-night engagement at Paramount Northwest Theatre in Seattle. For this second leg of the tour, Helena Springs was replaced by Carolyn Dennis (vocals) and Regina Peeples (vocals). The concerts were similar to those of the first leg, with similar setlists. The second leg of the tour concluded with a two-night engagement at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia on February 9.\n\nDylan and his touring band immediately traveled to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama to record the new songs they had been performing for the album Saved. Recording sessions lasted just five days, February 11–15. Producer Jerry Wexler later recalled, \"The arrangements were built in, because the band had been playing the songs live. Most of the licks are their own licks, which they perfected on the road.\"\n\nAfter taking the month of March off, Dylan and his touring band resumed the tour on April 17 with a four-night engagement at Massey Hall in Toronto. For the third leg of the tour, Carolyn Dennis was replaced by Clydie King (vocals), Gwen Evans (vocals), and Mary Elizabeth Bridges (vocals). At the Toronto concerts, Dylan introduced three new Christian songs not included on Saved, \"Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody\", \"Cover Down, Pray Through\", and \"I Will Love Him\". The April 20 show at Massey Hall was filmed, but never officially released. After a four-night engagement at Le Theatre Saint-Denis in Montreal, the tour headed back to the United States northeast, and concluded with four concerts in the Midwest. The final show was held at Memorial Hall in Dayton, Ohio on May 21.\n\nTour dates\n\nSetlists\n Setlist 1 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, What Can I Do for You?, Saved, In the Garden, Blessed Be the Name, Pressing On\n Setlist 2 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Saved, Blessed Be the Name, Pressing On\n Setlist 3 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Ain't No Man Righteous, No Not One, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Saved, Blessed Be the Name, Pressing On\n Setlist 4 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Blessed Be the Name, Pressing On\n Setlist 5 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Blessed Be the Name\n Setlist 6 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden\n Setlist 7 – When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace\n Setlist 8 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Blessed Be the Name\n Setlist 9 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Blessed Be the Name\n Setlist 10 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, When He Returns, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Covenant Woman, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On\n Setlist 11 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On\n Setlist 12 – Gotta Serve Somebody, Covenant Woman, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, What Can I Do for You?, Saved, In the Garden, Are You Ready, I Will Love Him\n Setlist 13 – When You Gonna Wake Up, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Precious Angel, Slow Train, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, What Can I Do for You?, Saved, In the Garden, Pressing On, Are You Ready, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through\n Setlist 14 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Ain't No Man Righteous, No Not One, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On\n Setlist 15 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, Lay, Lady, Lay, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On\n Setlist 16 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On, Blessed Be the Name\n Setlist 17 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, When He Returns, Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On, I Will Sing\n Setlist 18 – Gotta Serve Somebody, I Believe In You, When You Gonna Wake Up, Ain't Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody, Cover Down, Break Through, Precious Angel, Man Gave Names to All the Animals, Slow Train, Ain't No Man Righteous, No Not One, Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others), Solid Rock, Saving Grace, Saved, What Can I Do for You?, In the Garden, Are You Ready, Pressing On\n\nReferences\nCitations\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n Bob Dylan official website\n\n1979 concert tours\n1980 concert tours\nBob Dylan concert tours",
"Sloppy Seconds Vol. 2 is a mixtape album by the CunninLynguists, released in 2005.\n\nTrack listing\n\n\"Cornasto\"\n\"WQN5 Station ID #1\"\n\"Play Hard\"\n\"The Party\" (Skit)\n\"What They Playin? (Blow my High)\"\n\"Being Human's Hard\"\n\"Fear\"\n\"Clap\"\n\"WQN5 Station ID #2\"\n\"Wachugondo?\"\n\"Break Even\"Featuring Tripp Doogan\n\"Brain Over Muscle\"\n\"Time (What is It?)\"\n\"Friendgirl\"\n\"Porcelain (Remix)\"\n\"Miss Lady\"\n\"Til' the End (C.A.L.I.)\"\n\"The Talk\" (Skit)\n\"Since When?\"\n\"Mind Won't Behave\"\n\"It's Over\"\n\"Be Free (Remix)\"\n\"W.C.G.\"\n\"Diamond Sky\"\n\"WQN5 Station ID #3\"\n\"What'll You Do?\"\n\"Outro\"\n\nCunninLynguists albums\n2005 mixtape albums\nSequel albums"
]
|
[
"Uncle Tupelo",
"Breakup",
"what caused thee beaak up",
"Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend,",
"when did they break up",
"In January 1994,",
"what do they do after break up",
"Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore."
]
| C_eea056c49cca401a93366614591e197d_1 | any intressting thing | 4 | Anything interesting about Uncle Tupelo's final performance? | Uncle Tupelo | With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled: Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore. Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and didn't want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record." Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, since Farrar decided not to tell him in person. The following day, the two singers engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita--who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running--Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo's last concert was May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore. CANNOTANSWER | Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. | Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt with Heidorn, while the remaining members continued as Wilco.
Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and was widely influential. Uncle Tupelo's sound was unlike popular country music of the time, drawing inspiration from styles as diverse as the hardcore punk of The Minutemen and the country instrumentation and harmony of the Carter Family and Hank Williams. Farrar and Tweedy's lyrics frequently referred to Middle America and the working class of Belleville.
History
The Plebes and The Primitives
Jay Farrar, along with his brothers Wade and Dade, played in an early 1980s garage band named The Plebes. Hailing from Belleville, Illinois, The Plebes sought to enter a battle-of-the-bands competition but needed another high school student as a member to perform. They invited Jeff Tweedy, a high school friend of Jay Farrar, to join the band and play with them for the show. Despite a lack of skill with his instrument, Tweedy played an important role in the band by booking early gigs. While The Plebes had been playing music in a rockabilly style, Tweedy wanted to play punk rock like the music that he originally heard the group perform. This caused tensions between Tweedy and Dade Farrar, who left the band two months after Tweedy joined.
Before leaving the band in 1984, Dade Farrar introduced its members to Mike Heidorn, the younger brother of his girlfriend; Heidorn then joined the group as their drummer. The Plebes then decided to change its name to The Primitives, a reference to a 1965 song by psychedelic rock group The Groupies. Due to the unpopularity of punk rock in the St. Louis area, The Primitives began to play blues-oriented garage rock at fast tempos. They performed regularly at a wedding hall in Millstadt, Illinois, where Tweedy's mother Jo Ann would collect the cover fee. They also performed regularly at B St Bar in Belleville with bands such as The Newsboys (later Sammy and the Snowmonkeys), Charlie Langrehr, and The Symptoms. Wade Farrar was the lead singer of the band, but his commitment to Southern Illinois University and an attempted enlistment in the United States Army meant he was only able to dedicate a small amount of time to the group. Additionally, Heidorn broke his collarbone during a concert in 1986, which caused the band to go on hiatus. Jay Farrar and Tweedy continued to write songs and perform at Heidorn's house while he recovered, and by 1987 they had restarted the group. The Primitives temporarily added Tony Mayr as a bassist so that Tweedy could play guitar, but a month later the band decided to keep Tweedy on bass and remain a three-piece. To avoid confusion with a successful British band also named The Primitives, they decided to change their name once again, to Uncle Tupelo. Although they performed only 1960s cover songs as The Primitives, the trio decided to take a new approach and write their own music under their new name.
Early career
The Primitives renamed itself Uncle Tupelo after a character in a cartoon drawn by Chuck Wagner, a friend of the band's members. The name was created by combining two randomly chosen words from the dictionary; inspired by the name, Wagner drew a picture of an old, fat Elvis. The trio recorded a four-song demo tape, which won them supporting roles at the concerts of artists such as Johnny Thunders and Warren Zevon. Tweedy met Tony Margherita while moonlighting as a record clerk in St. Louis. After attending a pair of the band's concerts, Margherita offered to become its manager. Uncle Tupelo began to play regular shows at Cicero's Basement—a bar close to the campus of Washington University. Bands playing in a similar style, including Brian Henneman's Chicken Truck, often played at the venue, which by late 1988 was considered to have been the origin of a new music scene. The band temporarily expanded to a four-piece with the addition of the guitarist Alex Mutrux, but soon reverted to a trio.
Uncle Tupelo recorded its first tracks in the attic studio of future Chicago punk producer Matt Allison in Champaign, Illinois. The demo Not Forever, Just for Now includes the songs "I Got Drunk" and "Screen Door", as well as early versions of several songs that would appear on their first studio album. The CMJ New Music Report gave the tape a rave review, and called Uncle Tupelo the best unsigned band of the year. The accolade attracted the attention of independent labels, and the band decided to sign with Jay Fialkov and Debbie Southwood-Smith of Giant Records (who offered to book them at CBGB in New York City). Explaining the decision, the band said that "[our] original goals don't get distorted with an independent label."
Recordings on Rockville Records
Shortly after Uncle Tupelo's signing, Giant Records changed its name to Rockville Records. The band's first album for Rockville, No Depression, was recorded over ten days in January 1990, at Fort Apache South recording studio in Boston, Massachusetts. The album's thematic structure revolved around their lives as adolescents in Belleville; examples are songs about wanting to avoid factory work and songs about fearing a potential Persian Gulf War military draft. Impressed by their previous work on Dinosaur Jr.'s Bug, the band wanted Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to produce the album. Slade let Farrar play on the same 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG Junior that J. Mascis originally played on Bug. The album was released on June 21, 1990, and the band celebrated by playing at Cicero's for two nights.
In between tours, Farrar, Tweedy and Heidorn formed a country cover band named Coffee Creek, along with Brian Henneman (later a member of The Bottle Rockets). Henneman impressed Uncle Tupelo, and he was invited to be a guitar technician and occasional multi-instrumentalist for the band. While Farrar and Heidorn would avoid drinking too much after shows, Tweedy would continue drinking throughout the night. Although Tweedy stopped after he began dating Sue Miller in 1991, a significant communication gap had already been opened between Tweedy and Farrar.
By March 1991, No Depression had sold an estimated 15,000 copies, and was featured in a Rolling Stone article about rising stars. However, Rockville Records refused to pay the band any royalties for the album, a theme that would continue for the remainder of the band's contract. Over seventeen days the band recorded a second album at Long View Farm in rural North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Still Feel Gone, with a more layered sound, was also produced by Kolderie and Slade, with contributions by Slade, Henneman, Rich Gilbert, Chris Bess of Enormous Richard, and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks. The band was disappointed with the production of the album and decided to discontinue working with Kolderie and Slade. Soon afterward, Uncle Tupelo recorded "Shaking Hands (Soldier's Joy)" on Michelle Shocked's album Arkansas Traveler and joined her on the accompanying tour with Taj Mahal and The Band. However, the tour only lasted for a few shows because of managerial problems between Shocked and The Band.
Alternative rock had broken into the mainstream by 1992, and an album released in that style was expected to earn the group a major-label record deal. However, Uncle Tupelo did not want to follow in the footsteps of groups such as Nirvana, and decided to play country and folk songs "as a big 'fuck you' to the rock scene". Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M., saw the trio perform at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia and sought them out after the show. Buck was impressed with a version of "Atomic Power" that the band played, and offered his services for their next album. Over a span of five days, Buck produced the group's next album, March 16–20, 1992. Buck allowed them to stay in his house during the sessions, and charged no money for his services. Henneman's role was increased for this album, and he taught himself how to play mandolin and bouzouki. Despite turning away from the style of popular alternative rock, major labels began to show significant interest in Uncle Tupelo after March 16–20, 1992 was released. The album sold more than their two previous recordings combined, although Rockville was displeased that it did not conform to the style of popular alternative rock.
Major label contract
In 1992, Joe McEwen of Sire Records began to pursue the band. McEwen, who brought notable acts such as Dinosaur Jr. and Shawn Colvin to Sire, had been interested in them since hearing the Not Forever, Just for Now demo tape. At the urging of Gary Louris, McEwen offered Uncle Tupelo a contract. Band manager Tony Margherita invoked the $50,000 escape clause he had put in their Rockville contract, freeing the band to sign a seven-year deal with Sire. The deal required two albums and specified a budget of $150,000 for the first.
Around the time of the recording of March 16–20, 1992, Mike Heidorn had secured a steady job at a Belleville newspaper company and was dating a woman who had two children from a previous marriage. Uncle Tupelo had planned a tour of Europe, but Heidorn wanted to stay in Belleville with his girlfriend, whom he married in August 1992.
The band held auditions prior to the promotional tour for March 16–20, 1992, and two candidates stood out: Bill Belzer and Ken Coomer. Although Farrar and Tweedy agreed that Coomer was the better drummer, they were intimidated by his six-foot-four stature and long dreadlocks. The band instead selected Belzer as Heidorn's replacement, but he only stayed with the band for six months. Tweedy explained Belzer's departure:
I want to believe it was purely musical, and I honestly believe that it wasn't working musically. I also believe that we weren't emotionally mature enough to be close friends with a gay person at that point in our lives ... And Bill was and is a very proud and righteous gay person, very open about his homosexuality.
After touring Europe opening for Sugar, the band replaced Belzer with Coomer. The band also experimented with new members: John Stirratt replaced Brian Henneman (who left to form The Bottle Rockets) while Max Johnston, the brother of Michelle Shocked, joined as a live mandolin and violin performer. Stirratt became the full-time bassist, allowing Tweedy to perform more songs with the guitar.
Now a five-piece, Uncle Tupelo recorded their major label debut at Cedar Creek studio in Austin, Texas in early 1993. Anodyne consisted of live-in-the-studio recordings and included a duet with Farrar and Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet. The album sold 150,000 copies, and was their only entry on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The group toured until the end of the year, finishing with a sold-out concert at Tramps in New York City. Because of their concert draw, major executives at Sire began to see the band as a potential hit.
In 1993, the band contributed a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's track "Effigy" to the AIDS-Benefit album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Breakup
With the addition of Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston just prior to the recording of Anodyne, Farrar and Tweedy's relationship became more tumultuous, leading to verbal altercations after concerts. In one account, Tweedy recalled:
Around this time, I would say something into a microphone onstage, and afterward [Farrar would] pull me aside and say, "Don't you ever fucking talk into that microphone again." He would misconstrue me talking into the microphone as more evidence of my out-of-control, rampant ego, more evidence of me feeling like I didn't have to be so fucking afraid anymore.
Tweedy felt the new members gave him a new opportunity to contribute to the band, but Farrar felt disdain for Tweedy's new carefree attitude. Years later, Farrar would claim that he had been tempted to quit the band after seeing Tweedy stroking the hair of Farrar's girlfriend, an act which he believed to have been a proposition. In January 1994, Farrar called manager Tony Margherita to inform him of his decision to leave the band. Farrar told Margherita that he was no longer having fun, and did not want to work with Tweedy anymore. Soon after the breakup, Farrar explained his departure: "It just seemed like it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible. It had ceased to be a symbiotic songwriting relationship, probably after the first record."
Tweedy was enraged that he heard the news secondhand from Margherita, rather than directly from Farrar. The following day, the two engaged in a verbal confrontation. As a favor to Margherita, who had spent a substantial amount of money to keep the band running, Farrar agreed to a final tour with Uncle Tupelo in North America. Tweedy and Farrar again engaged in a shouting match two weeks into the tour, due to Farrar's refusal to sing harmony on any of Tweedy's songs. The band made its first appearance on national television during the tour when they were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Sire had requested that the band perform "The Long Cut" on the show, which further irked Farrar since the song was written and sung by Tweedy.
Uncle Tupelo's last concerts, two shows at The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri and two shows at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, took place from April 28 to May 1, 1994. A special "last leg" poster was created for the occasion which facetiously promoted the band as "St. Louis's 4th best country band", based on a readers' poll in the Riverfront Times. On the last night, Tweedy and Farrar each performed nine songs during the concert, and Mike Heidorn performed as drummer during the encore.
Post-breakup
Following Uncle Tupelo's final tour, Tweedy encouraged his bandmates to join him in a new group, while Farrar searched for members for a band of his own. Tweedy was able to retain the rest of the Uncle Tupelo lineup, and created Wilco. They began rehearsing a few days after the final Uncle Tupelo concert, and by August 1994 they were in the recording studio for their first album, A.M.. Farrar asked Jim Boquist to join his new band, Son Volt; Boquist was a multi-instrumentalist who had performed with Joe Henry as the opening act on Uncle Tupelo's last tour. Boquist also recruited his brother Dave, and Farrar convinced Mike Heidorn to leave Belleville to join the group. Farrar's new four-piece began recording their debut album Trace in November 1994.
Wilco signed to Reprise Records while Son Volt signed with Warner Bros. Records. Son Volt had an early college rock hit with "Drown" from the album Trace, but Wilco maintained a more commercially successful career in the years to follow. Regarding the possibility of a reunion, Mike Heidorn reported in a PopMatters interview that "nothing's ever for sure, but I would have to say, 'No such thing'." Farrar said that he does not want the band to get back together, while Tweedy said that he believes that a reunion would not be productive musically.
Farrar and Tweedy sued Rockville Records and Dutch East India Trading CEO Barry Tenenbaum in 2000 over royalties that the label allegedly owed them, winning restitution from Tenenbaum and the joint rights to Uncle Tupelo's first three albums. After securing the rights, the band released a compilation entitled 89/93: An Anthology. In 2003, Uncle Tupelo re-issued their first three albums, which before the lawsuit had cumulatively sold over 200,000 copies.
Influences
As The Primitives, Tweedy and Farrar were highly influenced by punk bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols. However, they began to listen to country music because punk rock was not well received in the Belleville and St. Louis music scenes. While they originally were introduced to country by their parents, it was not until this time that they began to listen to it for leisure. Farrar typically wrote songs about Middle America, while Tweedy wrote about more mainstream topics such as relationships. Farrar took influence from authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac, whom he read while working at his mother's bookstore. As a singer, Farrar's lyrics would be front-and-center during performances, but the band's musical style was mostly driven by Tweedy and Heidorn. Jeff Tweedy said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
We probably have more influences than we know what to do with. We have two main styles that have been influences. For instance, we like Black Flag as much as early Bob Dylan and Dinosaur Jr. as much as Hank Williams... To us, hard-core punk is also folk music. We draw a close parallel between the two. We'll play both in the same set if we get a chance. We don't have any biases as far as music is concerned.
Tweedy in particular was inspired by the Minutemen, and wrote a song about D. Boon following Boon's death in a van accident. The band has released songs originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Carter Family, Lead Belly, Gram Parsons, The Soft Boys, The Louvin Brothers, Texas Tornados, and The Stooges. Releasing March 16–20, 1992 when alternative music was breaking through was a move inspired by Neil Young's decision to release the challenging albums On the Beach and Tonight's the Night immediately after the commercially successful Harvest. Critic Michael Corcoran likened the band's musical style to "Bob Mould fronting Soul Asylum on a speeded-up version of a Gram Parsons song."
Legacy
Uncle Tupelo is credited as one of the founders of the alternative country genre, a blend of alternative rock and traditional country music. While the genre eventually became associated with solo artists such as Gram Parsons and Lyle Lovett, Uncle Tupelo is considered the first alternative country band. Some media outlets like the BBC have even suggested that they were the genre's sole creator. However, Tweedy and Heidorn dispute this claim, and Farrar says that there is no difference between alternative country and other genres such as roots rock. Heidorn commented in a Country Standard Time interview:
It's strange to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned because what we were doing was in such a long line of musical history. People are wrong in starting with us and saying we started anything because we were just picking up the ball, starting with Woody Guthrie and on to the early '60s and the Flying Burrito Brothers that we were influenced by. We didn't start a genre. We contributed to a long line of fairly good music. That's the way we looked at it at the time—doing what was right for the song.
The band's first three albums influenced contemporary roots rock artists such as Richmond Fontaine and Whiskeytown. Uncle Tupelo's usage of distorted guitars to play a style of music that was known for its earnestness became a lasting trend in 1990s modern rock. Jason Ankeny wrote in AllMusic that:
With the release of their 1990 debut LP, No Depression, the Belleville, IL, trio Uncle Tupelo launched more than simply their own career—by fusing the simplicity and honesty of country music with the bracing fury of punk, they kick-started a revolution which reverberated throughout the American underground.
Their 1990 album No Depression lent its name to an influential alternative country periodical. Due to the influence of the album and periodical, the term "No Depression" became a byword for alternative country—particularly for bands with punk rock influence. The alternative country movement played an important role in the success of future traditionalist country acts such as Robbie Fulks and Shelby Lynne.
Members
Jay Farrar – vocals, guitar (1987–1994)
Mike Heidorn – drums (1987–1992)
Jeff Tweedy – vocals, bass, guitar (1987–1994)
Bill Belzer – drums (1992)
Ken Coomer – drums (1992–1994)
Max Johnston – violin, mandolin (1992–1994)
John Stirratt – bass, guitar (1992–1994)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Compilations
Demo tapes
All demo tapes are self-released on cassette.
Singles
Contributions
Uncle Tupelo also recorded a one-hour radio special that was released by Legacy Records in 2003. Legacy only distributed the CD, entitled The Long Cut: A One Hour Radio Special, to non-commercial radio stations as a way to promote the re-issues of the band's studio albums. The special is hosted by Lauren Frey and features interviews by Farrar, Tweedy, and Heidorn.
Notes
References
External links
Factory Belt: The Unofficial Uncle Tupelo Archives
Postcard From Hell Mailing List
American alternative country groups
American country rock groups
Musical groups from St. Louis
Musical groups disestablished in 1994
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups from Illinois
Wilco
1987 establishments in Illinois
Sire Records artists
Dutch East India Trading artists
Giant Records (independent) artists | true | [
"Sexy Sweet Thing is a 2000 album released by the funk/R&B group Cameo. This 13-track release was Cameo's first full album of new material since In the Face of Funk in 1994, and peaked June 24, 2000, at #64 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. To date, this has been the last album released by Cameo; Sexy Sweet Thing was followed up by the single \"El Passo\" in 2019 but did not chart making this record their latest to enter any chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nExternal links\n\nReferences \n\nSexy Sweet Thing\nSexy Sweet Thing",
"Abortion in Tonga is severely restricted by criminal law, as nearly all abortions are illegal. Abortions are illegal in Tonga, unless medical authorities cite preservation of maternal health.\n\nTongan law\nAbortion in Tonga is restricted by sections 103 to 105 of the Criminal Offences Act. \n Section 103 makes administering a drug or noxious thing or unlawfully using an instrument or using any other means with the intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman or girl an offence with a sentence of up to seven years imprisonment.\n Section 104 makes it an offence with imprisonment of up to three years for a woman or girl to take or permit to be administered to her any drug or other noxious thing or to use or permit to be used on herself any instrument or other means with intent to procure a miscarriage. \n Section 105 creates an offence with imprisonment of up to four years for anyone supplying or procuring any drug or other noxious thing or any instrument knowing they are to be used for the purpose of procuring a miscarriage.\n\nIn addition, the Tonga Extradition Act allows persons to be extradited to specified countries when they are charged in those countries with an offence relating to abortion.\n\nReferences \n\nHealth in Tonga\nTonga\nTonga"
]
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[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur"
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | what radio show was he host of ? | 1 | what radio show was Steven Van Zandt host of ? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"Levente Harsányi (born 21 March 1970, Budapest) is a Hungarian television presenter and singer.\n\nCareer\nHarsányi's career started in 1996 when he hosted the TV3 programs Aszfaltbetyár and Zenefon in 1997. In 1998, he made his radio debut on the Radio 1 special program Telefonbetyárral. Meanwhile, he also graduated from a university, majoring in communications. From 2000 to 2002, he hosted the Luxor gaming show on Magyar Televízió. Between 2001 and 2003, he was a regular on the morning show Radio Roxy and from 2003 to 2004, he was a co-host of Dalnokok ligája. From 2003 to 2005, he was also on another morning show, Radio Deejay, and again in 2005, he was on the show Vásott kölykök. Along with Gábor Gundel Takács and Tibor Dévényi, he was also co-host of Csináljuk a fesztivált.\n\nHe was the host of the 2008 national final for Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with Éva Novodomszky. Between 2006 and February 2012, he was also a host for the Rádió 1 breakfast show Kukori, along with Anita Hudák, Mariann Peller, and Endre Hepi.\n\nFrom 7 March 2012 to the end of February 2013, he led the Music FM-based morning show Önindító with Steve Hajdu and Petra Pordán.\n\nIn 2013, he was the co-host of the M1 show Legenda.\n\nIn 2014, along with Krisztina Rátonyi, he was one of the song backstage presenters of the M1 radio show covering the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. Starting in 2015, he started to become involved with A Dal as a backstage host, and eventually, by the 2016 edition, became one of the main hosts along with Csilla Tatár.\n\nSince 2016, he has been a captain of the Duna-produced Magyarország, szeretlek! program. By May 30, he was also introduced as a co-host of the Petőfi Rádió breakfast show Talpra Magyar along with Mariann Peller and Miki Szakál. Also this year, he also became host of the Balatoni program. During the 2016 European Football Championship is a regular guest of the M4 Sports We came, we saw, visszanéznénk! It reproduces by.\n\nAlong with Krisztina Rátonyi, he was co-host of the 2016 Petőfi Music Awards gala at the VOLT Festival, along with Miss World Hungary and, with Csilla Tatár, hosts of the Duna channel.\n\nAwards\n Best Radio Host (2001, 2002)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Műsorvezető adatbázis\n Műsorvezetők\n Sztárlexikon\n\n1970 births\nLiving people\nTelevision people from Budapest\nHungarian television presenters",
"John Reed King (October 25, 1914 – July 8, 1979) was an American radio and television game show host who hosted numerous game shows during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.\n\nCareer\nKing was one of the announcers for The American School of the Air on CBS, and he had one of the top-rated radio shows of the 1930s in New York City with Missus Goes A-Shopping. He was also an announcer for the radio version of Death Valley Days and for The Jack Berch Show.\n\nOn August 1, 1944, he hosted the live television version of Missus Goes A-Shopping, and on January 29, 1946, he hosted the television version of It's a Gift, making these among the first television quiz shows ever aired, after CBS Television Quiz (1941-1942).\n\nHe worked at KDKA radio and television in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the 1960s. He was a morning news anchor for the radio station, and hosted a daily talk show on television. In 1970, he was a news anchor at KGO-TV, the ABC owned-and-operated television station in San Francisco, California.\n\nPersonal life\nHe was married to Jean Abbot King and had three children, Joanne King, Julianne King, and John Reed King Jr.\n\nRadio Shows, Host\nMissus Goes A-Shopping (1934-1944) CBS Radio and local NYC\nOur Gal Sunday (1937-1940) announcer\nDuffy's Tavern (1941-1942) announcer\nThe Gay Nineties Revue (1941) announcer\nWhat's My Name? (1941)\nDouble or Nothing (1944 - 1945)\nDeath Valley Days and The Sheriff (1945-1951) announcer\nGive and Take (1945-1953) CBS\nChance of a Lifetime (1949-1952) ABC \nSky King (1954) playing the part of Sky King\n\nTelevision Shows, Host\nMissus Goes A-Shopping (1944-1949) CBS Television\nIt's a Gift (1946) CBS\nKing's Party Line (1946)\nThe John Reed King Show (1949)\nChance of a Lifetime (1950-1952) ABC; (1953-1955) (DuMont)\nBattle of the Ages (1952)\nBeat the Clock (1952)\nWhere Was I? (1952-1953) DuMont\nWhat's Your Bid? (Feb-April 1953) ABC\nThere's One In Every Family (1952-1953) CBS\nGive and Take (1952-1953) CBS\nWhy? (1953)\nLet's See (1954) ABC\nHave a Heart (1955) DuMont\nGunsmoke, episode \"Old Comrade\" (1962) guest starred as a townsman\n\nBooks\nJohn Reed King's Quiz and Game Book (1949)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1914 births\n1979 deaths\nAmerican television personalities"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock"
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | when did he start hosting it? | 2 | when did Steven Van Zandt start hosting Little Steven's Underground Garage? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | Since 2002, | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"Nancy Anna Francina Coolen, known as Nance (born 10 September 1973 in Asten, North Brabant, Netherlands) is a Dutch TV host who was previously the lead-singer of a Eurodance group called Twenty 4 Seven.\n\nAt the age of 15, Nance was discovered in a discothèque by dance-producer Ruud van Rijen. He created the dance-act Twenty 4 Seven, in which Nance performs along with rapper Tony Dawson-Harrison, more commonly known by his stage name, Captain Hollywood. When the latter left the project and was replaced by rapper Stay C the act scored its biggest hits, like Slave to the Music.\n\nIn 1996 Nance decided to leave Twenty 4 Seven to start up a solo-career, which led to a couple of small hits in The Netherlands. Around the same time she began working as a TV host for several channels. She hosted the Dutch Top 40 a couple of times for TMF Nederland. A little later she did the love quiz Liefde is... for RTL 5. In 1999 she started hosting the game show Rappatongo for TROS. After 200 episodes the show was cancelled.\n\nNance started hosting the game show Lingo which she did until late 2005 when she decided to host programmes for SBS 6.\n\nNance was married to William Rutten from 4 May 1995 until March 2000, when they divorced. She now has a relationship with Pico van Sytzama.\n\nSingles with Twenty 4 Seven\n\nSolo\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website \n\n1973 births\nLiving people\nDutch television presenters\nDutch women television presenters\nPeople from Asten, Netherlands\n21st-century Dutch singers\nNationaal Songfestival presenters",
"Adam Wurtzel (born October 2, 1985) is an American television personality, host and producer. He is best known for hosting the Syndicated TV series \"Nashville Insider\" as well as co-hosting the live stage game show, \"Hollywood's Greatest Game Shows\" with Bob Eubanks.\n\nCareer\nWurtzel began his hosting career in college when he created and hosted Eastern Expedition at Eastern Connecticut State University. This show quickly gained attention when it won a BEA Award in Las Vegas for Best Student Production.\n\nIn 2009, Wurtzel was selected through a nationwide search to host the 3-hour Game Show Network live game show GSN Live. Already the Audience Warm-Up and Producer for CBS's The Early Show, this attention led Wurtzel to be named Backstage Correspondent for CBS's Early Backstage segments.\n\nWurtzel moved to Nashville with his wife, country music publicist Carly Caramanna in early 2012, where he began working for WSMV-TV in Nashville, covering both Better Nashville and News & More at Midday. He started his work on \"Nashville Insider\" in 2016 at the start of the show's run. Wurtzel is also an accomplished producer, having worked on major reality television shows such as Celebrity Apprentice, Kitchen Nightmares, America's Got Talent, and Jerseylicious.\n\nWurtzel also produced Jenny McCarthy's segments for ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve for 5 years.\n\nSince 2020, Wurtzel has been hosting the online YouTube talk show, Hosts at Home, which features virtual interviews with some of the greatest game show hosts.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Adam Wurtzel (Official Site)\n \n \n\n1985 births\nAmerican infotainers\nLiving people\nPeople from Levittown, New York"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,"
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | was the show popular? | 3 | was the show Little Steven's Underground Garage popular? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"The Silver Logie for Most Popular Australian Program was an award presented at the Australian TV Week Logie Awards. The award was given to recognise the popularity of Australian programs, originally state based awards and then awarded nationally.\n\nIt was first awarded at the 3rd Annual TV Week Logie Awards ceremony, held in 1961 when the award was originally called Most Popular Program. This award category was eliminated in 1966 and replaced by the Most Popular Live Show category. It was reintroduced in 1968 and renamed Best Show. Over the years, this category has also been known as Best Local Show (1970), Most Popular Show (1971, 1973–1985), Most Popular Series (1993–1997) and Most Popular Australian Program (2003–2004).\n\nState Affair holds the record for the most wins, with fifteen, followed by Adelaide Tonight, The Mike Walsh Show and Neighbours with nine wins each.\n\nNational\n\nStates\n\nNew South Wales\n\nQueensland\n\nSouth Australia\n\nTasmania\n\nVictoria\n\nWestern Australia\n\nReferences\n\nAwards established in 1961",
"The Logie for Most Popular Comedy Program is an award presented annually at the Australian TV Week Logie Awards. It recognises the popularity of an Australian comedy program, which over the years have included scripted comedy series, sketch comedy, variety comedy shows and panel comedy shows.\n\nIt was first awarded at the 19th Annual TV Week Logie Awards, held in 1977 when the award was originally called Most Popular Australian Comedy. Over the years, it has been known as Most Popular Variety/Panel Comedy Show (1978), Most Popular Comedy Show (1979, 1981, 1983), Most Popular Variety/Comedy Show (1980), Most Popular Comedy Series (1982), Most Popular Comedy Series (1985).\n\nThe award was discontinued in 1986 when nominees were included in the Most Popular Australian Light Entertainment Program category. From 1989 to 1992, that award was known as the Most Popular Light Entertainment Program/Comedy award.\n\nThe category was reinstated as the Most Comedy Program in 1993 until 1999. In 2000, the categories were again combined as the Most Popular Comedy/Light Entertainment Program award. From 2018, the award category name was restored as Most Popular Comedy Program.\n\nThe winner and nominees of this category are chosen by the public through an online voting survey on the TV Week website. Full Frontal holds the record for the most wins, with four, followed by The Paul Hogan Show and Fast Forward with three each.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nFrom 2000 to 2017, comedy nominees were included in the Logie Award for Most Popular Entertainment Program category.\n\nMultiple wins\n\nSee also\n Logie Award for Most Popular Entertainment Program\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAwards established in 1977"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,",
"was the show popular?",
"As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets."
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | what international markets are these? | 4 | what international markets heard the show Little Steven's Underground Garage? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"Global strategy as defined in business terms is an organization's strategic guide to globalization. Such a connected world, allows a business's revenue to not be to be confined by borders. A business can employ a global business strategy to reap the rewards of trading in a worldwide market.\n\nDescription\nA sound global strategy should address these questions: what must be (versus what is) the extent of market presence in the world's major markets? How to build the necessary global presence? What must be AND (versus what is) the optimal locations around the world for the various value chain activities? How to run global presence into a global competitive advantage? The “International” classification of a global business strategy is employed by companies who may sell in foreign markets, but their primary focus is on their home market. These companies may include international strategies in their business model to increase sales, but they know that their main target consumer is local.\n\nResearch\nAcademic research on global strategy came during the 1980s, including work by Michael Porter and Christopher Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal. Among the forces perceived to bring about the globalization of competition were convergences in economic systems and technological change, especially in information technology, that facilitated and required the coordination of a multinational firm's strategy on a worldwide scale.\n\nIndustries\nA global strategy may be appropriate in industries where firms are faced with strong pressures for cost reduction but with weak pressures for local responsiveness. Therefore, it allows these firms to sell a standardized product worldwide. However, fixed costs (capital equipment) are substantial. Nevertheless, these firms are able to take advantage of scale economies and experience curve effects, because it is able to mass-produce a standard product, which can be exported (providing that demand is greater than the costs involved).\n\nGlobal strategies require firms to tightly coordinate their product and pricing strategies across international markets and locations, and therefore firms that pursue a global strategy are typically highly centralized.\n\nAspects\nA global strategy involves thinking in an integrated way about all aspects of business-its suppliers, production sites, markets, and competition. It involves assessing every product or service from the perspective of both domestic and international market standards. It means embedding international perspectives in product formulations at the point of design, not as afterthoughts. It means meeting world standards even before seeking world markets and being world class even in local markets. It means deepening the company's understanding of local and cultural differences in order to become truly global.\n\nReferences\n\nKanter, R. M., & Dretler, T. D. (1998, November). \"Global strategy\" and its impact on local operations. The Academy of Management Executive, 12 (4), pp. 60–68.\n\nExternal links\nGlobal Strategic Management, QuickMBA\nGlobal Strategy Journal\n\nStrategic management\nGlobal business organization",
"Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? is the debut album by rock band The Like, released by Geffen in 2005 in the United States and 2006 in selected international markets including the United Kingdom. It features the singles \"What I Say and What I Mean\" and \"June Gloom\". In some markets the music video for \"What I Say and What I Mean\" is included on the album, and in others a cover of Split Enz's \"One Step Ahead\" (1981) is included as a bonus track.\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks written by Z Berg, except where noted.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Like on MySpace\nGeffen Records\n\nThe Like albums\n2005 debut albums\nGeffen Records albums"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,",
"was the show popular?",
"As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets.",
"what international markets are these?",
"in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008."
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | was his show popular internationally? | 5 | was Little Steven's Underground Garage show popular internationally? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | false | [
"Oliver Mlakar (born 1 July 1935 in Ptuj, Drava Banovina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is a Croatian television presenter. Best known for hosting game shows, he was one of the most popular television personalities in SFR Yugoslavia and later Croatia.\n\nBiography\nMlakar was born in Ptuj and lived in Osijek from 1945 to 1954. He moved to Zagreb in 1954 to study French and Italian at the University of Zagreb and began working as an announcer for Radio Zagreb in 1957.\n\nMlakar became a full-time broadcaster for Television Zagreb in 1965, hosting Poziv na kviz with Jasmina Nikić, the first quiz show on Yugoslav television. Directed by Anton Marti, only several episodes were shot.\n\nHis most acclaimed work was as a games show host and he became known internationally for hosting Jeux Sans Frontières in the 1970s, and Kviskoteka, a highly popular quiz show that ran from 1980 to 1995. He co-hosted the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest held at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb (former Yugoslavia). Almost a decade later in 1999, Mlakar was still involved with Eurovision, hosting Dora, the Croatian heat of the song contest. From 1993 to 2002, Mlakar hosted Kolo sreće, a Croatian version of Wheel of Fortune. He retired from his job at the Croatian Radiotelevision in 2002.\n\nSee also\n List of Eurovision Song Contest presenters\n List of game show hosts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Oliver Mlakar: Omiljeni televizijski voditelj \n Mlakar: Voditeljski posao učio sam korak po korak \n\n1935 births\nCroatian television presenters\nCroatian game show hosts\nFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni\nLiving people\nPeople from Ptuj",
"Trafikmagasinet (The Traffic magazine) was a Swedish TV-show about traffic and motoring, broadcast on the Swedish public service network SVT from 1978 to 2003. Aside from reviewing new cars (which were graded by awarding \"steering wheels\"), Trafikmagasinet featured news, educational content, and consumer reports. The show was created by Carl Ingemar Perstad who also hosted the show until 2002. Christer Glenning co-hosted the show and was responsible for car testing until his death in 1998.\n\nHistory\nTrafikmagasinet launched on March 15, 1978. The show was an immediate success and its ratings were higher than many popular entertainment shows. Internationally, the show was a pioneer. The type of road tests first introduced in Trafikmagasinet became very popular and used by motor journalists in several countries.\n\nBeside the TV-audience, journalists and car industry looked upon Trafikmagasinet with high confidence. In 1987 Carl-Ingemar Perstad received an award from the Swedish Royal Automobile Club for his contribution to enhance and improve the level of Swedish road and traffic safety.\n\nAn important event in the show's history was when a Škoda failed miserably in a road test, flipping over while turning in 30 km/h. History repeated itself in 1997, when Trafikmagasinet together with the car magazine Teknikens Värld overturned the new Mercedes-Benz A-Class during testing. Mercedes-Benz initially claimed that the car had been manipulated and threatened to sue the journalists, but finally had to admit that the car was unsafe during sharp turns at high speed. The A-Class was re-released with Electronic Stability Control, and the episode gave some fame to the expression moose test - this due to Mercedes-Benz' initial attempt to ridicule the failed test and claim that it was only of interest to Swedes.\n\nDuring the 1990s and onward new co-hosts joined Trafikmagasinet. Sofia Lindahl was followed by Bodil Karlsson and later Veronica Marklund. When Christer Glenning died in 1998, Staffan Borglund replaced him as car tester.\n\nDuring its last year, Trafikmagasinet left the studio-based concept. The show was one of many that were axed when SVT were forced to make major budget-cuts in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n SVT official site\n\nSveriges Television original programming\nAutomotive television series"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,",
"was the show popular?",
"As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets.",
"what international markets are these?",
"in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.",
"was his show popular internationally?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | what did he do as an enterpreneur? | 6 | what did Steven Van Zandt do as an enterpreneur? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"Do-support (or do-insertion), in English grammar, is the use of the auxiliary verb do, including its inflected forms does and did, to form negated clauses and questions as well as other constructions in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required.\n\nThe verb \"do\" can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, and it usually serves to add emphasis, as in \"I did shut the fridge.\" However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the conventions of Modern English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. It is not idiomatic in Modern English to add the negating word not to a lexical verb with finite form; not can be added only to an auxiliary or copular verb. For example, the sentence I am not with the copula be is fully idiomatic, but I know not with a finite lexical verb, while grammatical, is archaic. If there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary do is used to produce a form like I do not (don't) know. The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions: inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb so it is not idiomatic to say Know you him?; today's English usually substitutes Do you know him?\n\nDo-support is not used when there is already an auxiliary or copular verb present or with non-finite verb forms (infinitives and participles). It is sometimes used with subjunctive forms. Furthermore, the use of do as an auxiliary should be distinguished from the use of do as a normal lexical verb, as in They do their homework.\n\nCommon uses\nDo-support appears to accommodate a number of varying grammatical constructions:\nquestion formation,\nthe appearance of the negation not, and\nnegative inversion.\nThese constructions often cannot occur without do-support or the presence of some other auxiliary verb.\n\nIn questions\nThe presence of an auxiliary (or copular) verb allows subject–auxiliary inversion to take place, as is required in most interrogative sentences in English. If there is already an auxiliary or copula present, do-support is not required when forming questions:\n\n He will laugh. → Will he laugh? (the auxiliary will inverts with the subject he)\n She is at home. → Is she at home? (the copula is inverts with the subject she)\n\nThis applies not only in yes–no questions but also in questions formed using interrogative words:\n\n When will he laugh?\n\nHowever, if there is no auxiliary or copula present, inversion requires the introduction of an auxiliary in the form of do-support:\n\n I know. → Do I know? (Compare: *Know I?)\n He laughs. → Does he laugh? (Compare: *Laughs he?)\n She came home. → Did she come home? (Compare: *Came she home?)\n\nThe finite (inflected) verb is now the auxiliary do; the following verb is a bare infinitive which does not inflect: does he laugh? (not laughs); did she come? (not came).\n\nIn negated questions, the negating word not may appear either following the subject, or attached to the auxiliary in the contracted form n't. That applies both to do-support and to other auxiliaries:\n\n Why are you not playing? / Why aren't you playing?\n Do you not want to try? / Don't you want to try?\n\nThe above principles do not apply to wh-questions if the interrogative word is the subject or part of the subject. Then, there is no inversion and so there is no need for do-support: Who lives here?, Whose dog bit you?\n\nThe verb have, in the sense of possession, is sometimes used without do-support as if it were an auxiliary, but this is considered dated. The version with do-support is also correct:\n\n Have you any idea what is going on here?\n Do you have any idea what is going on here?\n (Have you got any idea what is going on here? – the order is similar to the first example, but have is an auxiliary verb here)\n\nFor elliptical questions and tag questions, see the elliptical sentences section below.\n\nWith not\nIn the same way that the presence of an auxiliary allows question formation, the appearance of the negating word not is allowed as well. Then too, if no other auxiliary or copular verb is present, do-support is required.\n\n He will laugh. → He will not laugh. (not attaches to the auxiliary will)\n She laughs. → She does not laugh. (not attaches to the added auxiliary does)\n\nIn the second sentence, do-support is required because idiomatic Modern English does not allow forms like *She laughs not. The verb have, in the sense of possession, is sometimes negated thus:\n\n I haven't the foggiest idea.\n\nMost combinations of auxiliary/copula plus not have a contracted form ending in -n't, such as isn't, won't, etc. The relevant contractions for negations formed using do-support are don't, doesn't and didn't. Such forms are used very frequently in informal English.\n\nDo-support is required for negated imperatives even when the verb is the copula be:\n\nDo not do that.\nDon't be silly.\n\nHowever, there is no do-support with non-finite, as they are negated by a preceding not:\n\nIt would be a crime not to help him (the infinitive to help is negated)\nNot knowing what else to do, I stood my ground (the present participle knowing is negated)\nNot eating vegetables can harm your health (the gerund eating is negated)\n\nWith subjunctive verb forms, as a present subjunctive, do is infrequently used for negation, which is frequently considered ambiguous or incorrect because it resembles the indicative. The usual method to negate the present subjunctive is to precede the verb with a not, especially if the verb is be (as do-support with it, whether it be indicative or subjunctive, is ungrammatical):\n\nI suggest that he not receive any more funding (the present subjunctive receive is negated)\nIt is important that he not be there (the present subjunctive be is negated)\n\nAs a past subjunctive, however, did is needed for negation (unless the verb is be, whose past subjunctive is were):\n\nI wish that he did not know it\nI wish that he were not here\n\nThe negation in the examples negates the non-finite predicate. Compare the following competing formulations:\n\nI did not try to laugh. vs. I tried not to laugh.\nThey do not want to go. vs. They want not to go.\n\nThere are two predicates in each of the verb chains in the sentences. Do-support is needed when the higher of the two is negated; it is not needed to negate the lower nonfinite predicate.\n\nFor negated questions, see the questions section above. For negated elliptical sentences, see the elliptical sentences section below.\n\nNegative inversion\nThe same principles as for question formation apply to other clauses in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required, particularly after negative expressions and expressions involving only (negative inversion):\n\n Never did he run that fast again. (wrong: *Never he did run that fast again. *Never ran he that fast again.)\n Only here do I feel at home. (wrong: *Only here feel I at home.)\n\nFurther uses\nIn addition to providing do-support in questions and negated clauses as described above, the auxiliary verb do can also be used in clauses that do not require do-support. In such cases, do-support may appear for pragmatic reasons.\n\nFor emphasis\nThe auxiliary generally appears for purposes of emphasis, for instance to establish a contrast or to express a correction:\n Did Bill eat his breakfast? Yes, he did eat his breakfast (did emphasizes the positive answer, which may be unexpected).\n Bill doesn't sing, then. No, he does sing (does emphasizes the correction of the previous statement).\n\nAs before, the main verb following the auxiliary becomes a bare infinitive, which is not inflected (one cannot say *did ate or *does sings in the above examples).\n\nAs with typical do-support, that usage of do does not occur with other auxiliaries or a copular verb. Then, emphasis can be obtained by adding stress to the auxiliary or copular:\n\n Would you take the risk? Yes, I would take the risk.\n Bill isn't singing, then. No, he is singing.\n\n(Some auxiliaries, such as can, change their pronunciation when stressed; see Weak and strong forms in English.)\n\nIn negative sentences, emphasis can be obtained by adding stress either to the negating word (if used in full) or to the contracted form ending in n't. That applies whether or not do-support is used:\n\n I wouldn't (or would not) take the risk.\n They don't (or do not) appear on the list.\n\nEmphatic do can also be used with imperatives, including with the copula be:\n\n Do take care! Do be careful!\n\nIn elliptical sentences\nThe auxiliary do is also used in various types of elliptical sentences, where the main verb is omitted (it can be said to be \"understood\", usually because it would be the same verb as was used in a preceding sentence or clause). That includes the following types:\n\nTag questions:\n He plays well, doesn't he?\n You don't like Sara, do you?\nElliptical questions:\n I like pasta. Do you?\n I went to the party. Why didn't you?\nElliptical statements:\n They swam, but I didn't.\n He looks smart, and so do you.\n You fell asleep, and I did, too.\n\nSuch uses include cases that do-support would have been used in a complete clause (questions, negatives, inversion) but also cases that (as in the last example) the complete clause would normally have been constructed without do (I fell asleep too). In such instances do may be said to be acting as a pro-verb since it effectively takes the place of a verb or verb phrase: did substitutes for fell asleep.\n\nAs in the principal cases of do-support, do does not normally occur when there is already an auxiliary or copula present; the auxiliary or copula is retained in the elliptical sentence:\n\nHe is playing well, isn't he?\nI can cook pasta. Can you?\nYou should get some sleep, and I should too.\n\nHowever, it is possible to use do as a pro-verb (see below section #Pro-verbs & Do-so Substitution even after auxiliaries in some dialects:\n\nHave you put the shelf up yet? I haven't done (or I haven't), but I will do (or I will).\n(However it is not normally used in this way as a to-infinitive: Have you put the shelf up? I plan to, rather than *I plan to do; or as a passive participle: Was it built? Yes, it was, not *Yes, it was done.)\n\nPro-verbal uses of do are also found in the imperative: Please do. Don't!\n\nPro-verbs and do-so substitution\nThe phrases do so and do what for questions are pro-verb forms in English. They can be used as substitutes for verbs in x-bar theory grammar to test verb phrase completeness. Bare infinitives forms often are used in place of the missing pro-verb forms.\n\nExamples from Santorini and Kroch:\n\nTests for constituenthood of a verb-phrase in X'-grammar\nThe do so construction can be used to test if a verb-phrase is a constituent phrase in X'-grammar by substitution similarly to how other pro-forms can be used to test for noun-phrases, etc.\n\nIn X-bar theory, the verb-phrase projects three bar-levels such as this:\n\n VP\n / \\\n ZP X'\n / \\\n X' YP\n |\n X \n |\n head\n\nWith a simple sentence:\n\n S\n |\n VP\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n NP \\\n / \\ \\ \n DP N' V'\n | | / \\\nThe children / \\\n / \\\n V' PP\n / \\ /_\\\n / \\ with gusto\n V NP\n | /_\\\n ate the pizza\n\nHere again exemplified by Santorini and Kroch, do so substitution for testing constituent verb phrases in the above sample sentence:\n\n S\n |\n VP\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n / \\\n NP \\\n / \\ \\ \n DP N' V'\n | | / \\\nThe children / \\\n / \\\n V' PP\n / \\ /_\\\n / \\ with gusto\n V NP\n | /_\\\n did so the pizza\n\nUse of do as main verb\nApart from its uses as an auxiliary, the verb do (with its inflected forms does, did, done, doing) can be used as an ordinary lexical verb (main verb):\n\nDo your homework!\nWhat are you doing?\n\nLike other non-auxiliary verbs, do cannot be directly negated with not and cannot participate in inversion so it may itself require do-support, with both auxiliary and lexical instances of do appearing together:\n\n They didn't do the laundry on Sunday. (did is the auxiliary, do is the main verb)\n Why do you do karate? (the first do is the auxiliary, the second is the main verb)\n How do you do? (a set phrase used as a polite greeting)\n\nMeaning contribution\nIn the various cases seen above that require do-support, the auxiliary verb do makes no apparent contribution to the meaning of the sentence so it is sometimes called a dummy auxiliary. Historically, however, in Middle English, auxiliary do apparently had a meaning contribution, serving as a marker of aspect (probably perfective aspect, but in some cases, the meaning may have been imperfective). In Early Modern English, the semantic value was lost, and the usage of forms with do began to approximate that found today.\n\nOrigins\n\nSome form of auxiliary \"do\" occurs in all West Germanic languages except Afrikaans. It is generally accepted that the past tense of Germanic weak verbs (in English, -ed) was formed from a combination of the infinitive with a past tense form of \"do\", as exemplified in Gothic. The origins of the construction in English are debated: some scholars argue it was already present in Old English, but not written due to stigmatization. Scholars disagree whether the construction arose from the use of \"do\" as a lexical verb in its own right, or whether periphrastic \"do\" arose from a causative meaning of the verb or vice versa. Examples of auxiliary \"do\" in Old English writing appear to be limited to its use in a causative sense, which is parallel to the earliest uses in other West Germanic languages. Others argue that the construction arose either via the influence of Celtic speakers or that the construction arose as a form of creolization when native speakers addressed foreigners and children.\n\nSee also\n\nEnglish verbs\nEnglish clause syntax\nIntensifier\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish grammar\nWord order\nSyntax\nGenerative syntax",
"Anacoenosis is a figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question to an audience in a way that demonstrates a common interest.\n\nDiscussion\n\nThe term comes from the Greek (anakoinoûn), meaning \"to communicate, impart\".\n\nAnacoenosis typically uses a rhetorical question, where no reply is really sought or required, thus softening what is really a statement or command. \n\nAsking a question that implies one clear answer is to put others in a difficult position. If they disagree with you, then they risk conflict or derision. In particular if you state the question with certainty, then it makes disagreement seem rude.\n\nParticularly when used in a group, this uses social conformance. If there is an implied agreement by all and one person openly disagrees, then they risk isolating themselves from the group, which is a very scary prospect.\n\nIf I am in an audience and the speaker uses anacoenosis and I do not agree yet do not speak up, then I may suffer cognitive dissonance between my thoughts and actions. As a result, I am likely to shift my thinking toward the speaker's views in order to reduce this tension.\n\nExamples\nDo you not think we can do this now?\nNow tell me, given the evidence before us, could you have decided any differently?\nWhat do you think? Are we a bit weary? Shall we stay here for a while?\n\"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?\" Isaiah 5:3-4\nThe entire speech of Marc Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar forms an extended example of anacoenosis. Marc Anthony begins by building common cause with the audience on stage, addressing them as \"Friends, Romans, countrymen...\" His speech then poses a number of rhetorical questions to them as part of his refutation of Brutus' words: \"Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? / When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: / Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;/ And Brutus is an honourable man. / You all did see that on the Lupercal / I thrice presented him a kingly crown, / Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?\" (Act 3, Scene 2)\n\nSee also\nRhetorical question\n\nReferences \n\nFigures of speech\nRhetoric"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,",
"was the show popular?",
"As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets.",
"what international markets are these?",
"in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.",
"was his show popular internationally?",
"I don't know.",
"what did he do as an enterpreneur?",
"Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network."
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | what were the radio channels? | 7 | what were the radio channels Steven Van Zandt directed? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"The Grateful Dead Channel is a Sirius XM Radio channel playing music spanning American rock band The Grateful Dead's entire career including unreleased concert recordings.\n\nIt also has featured original shows hosted by band members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann. Rare archival interviews with Jerry Garcia are also featured. Another prime feature is Today in Grateful Dead History, in which the Dead's official archivist, David Lemieux, plays a selection from the Dead's touring past that took place on or near that date, together with his personal remembrances of particular venues and interpretations of what stretches were or were not artistically successful for the group. The Channel also broadcast live the band's 2015 Fare Thee Well shows.\n\nThis channel was originally on Sirius Satellite Radio. It airs on Sirius XM Radio channel 23 and on Dish Network channel 6023.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Grateful Dead Channel\n\nSirius Satellite Radio channels\nXM Satellite Radio channels\nSirius XM Radio channels\nRadio stations established in 2007\nChannel",
"In the United States, the Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS), commonly called citizens band radio (CB radio), is one of several personal radio services defined under Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 95. It is intended to be a two-way voice communication service for use in personal and business activities of the general public, and has a reliable communications range of several miles, though the range is highly dependent on type of radio, antenna and propagation.\n\nCB radio is most frequently used by long-haul truck drivers for everything from relaying information regarding road conditions, the location of speed traps and other travel information, to basic socializing and friendly chatter. CB radio is also frequently used on larger farms for communication between machinery operators.\n\nOrigins\nAs originally constituted, what is now CB radio was Class D of the Citizens' Radio Service. Classes A and B were in the UHF radio band and served a similar purpose as Class D while Class C was interspersed among the current CB channels and used for remote control of devices, usually model craft (aircraft, watercraft, or road vehicles). Class A and B were eventually replaced by the Family Radio Service (FRS) and General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). What was initially Class C, is now known as the Radio Control Radio Service and now includes spectrum at 72 and 76 MHz in addition to the original 27-MHz channels interspersed among voice channels as well as CB channel 23.\n\nEligibility\nThere are no age, citizenship, or license requirements to operate a CB radio in the United States, and the service falls under the \"License by Rule\" part of the FCC rules (basically, if one follows the rules one is considered licensed). Operators may use any of the authorized 40 CB channels; however, channel 9 is used only for emergency communications or for traveler assistance. The higher number channels are almost exclusively single-sideband (SSB) modulation. Use of all channels is on a shared basis. However, foreign governments and their representatives are not eligible to use citizens' band radio within the United States.\n\nOperation is permitted anywhere within the United States and its territories or possessions; as well as anywhere in the world except within the territorial limits of areas where radio services are regulated by a foreign government, or another US agency such as the Department of Defense.\n\nTransmitters must be FCC certified and may not be modified, including modifications to increase output power or to transmit on unauthorized frequencies. Output power is limited to 4 watts for AM and FM transmitters and 12 watts peak envelope power for SSB transmitters. The antenna may not be more than 20 feet (6.1 m) above the highest point of the structure it is mounted to, or the highest point of the antenna must not be more than 60 feet (18.3 m) above the ground (47 CFR 95.408(c)) if installed in a fixed location.\n\nCB radios must include AM or SSB modulation and may include frequency modulation. If a radio includes SSB, it must transmit on the upper sideband with a suppressed, reduced, or full carrier. The unit may also transmit on the lower sideband with carrier as noted.\n\nChannel assignments\n\nAllocated frequencies \n\nThe CB Radio Service spectrum is divided into 40 numbered radio frequency channels from 26.965 to 27.405 MHz. Channel spacing is 10 kHz between channel centers with exceptions where CBRS channels are adjacent to Radio Control Radio Service. The initial channel allocations had a gap equal to two channel spaces between channels 22 and 23. Those channels were assigned to the Business Radio Service. Beginning in 1977, those two channels (and 15 others above CB Channel 23) were reallocated to CB use. Channel 23 was left as it was so that users of pre-1977 equipment could use that equipment with minimal confusion.\n\nChannel usage\nChannel 19 is the most commonly-used channel by truck drivers on highways, to the point that some radios even have a dedicated button to bring up channel 19 instantly. In many areas of the US, other channels have been used in the past for similar purposes including 10, 17, and 21. Channel 13 has been used in some areas for marine use and for recreational vehicles.\n\nChannel 9 is reserved by regulation for emergency use and to provide traveler assistance. In decades past, the channel was monitored by volunteers who could relay messages to the authorities, and often monitored directly by the authorities themselves. With the popularity of cellular phones since the 1990s, support for Channel 9 as an emergency channel has diminished, though volunteer organizations such as Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams (REACT), and private individuals still monitor Channel 9 in some areas.\n\nChannels 30 through 40 are preferred for sideband operation, with 38 known as a calling channel.\n\nThe FCC approved the use of narrowband FM modulation for the CB Radio Service on October 28, 2021, analogous to the European CEPT standard. FM recommended channels: 3, 4, 11, 18 (Highway FM Channel), 28, and 29.\n\nShared radio services\n\nRemote control\n\nAmong several other services that share the CB frequencies is the former Class C Citizens Band service, renamed to the Radio Control Radio Service (RCRS) in 1976, outlined in Subpart C of the Part 95 rules for radio-controlled (\"R/C\") devices. No voice transmissions are permitted. It has six channels in the 27 MHz band. Five are unused 10 kHz CB assignments between channels 3–4, 7–8, 11–12, 15–16 and 19–20, and the sixth is shared with Channel 23. R/C transmitters may use up to 4 watts on the first five channels and 25 watts on the last, 27.255 MHz. Some in-house paging systems, and car alarms with a paging feature, also use these frequencies, especially 27.255 MHz, where the higher power is permitted.\n\nThe 27 MHz RCRS channels are not officially numbered by the FCC. R/C enthusiasts usually designate them by color, and fly different-colored flags from the antenna to show who is on which channel.\n\nBecause of interference from CB radios, legal or otherwise, the noise level, and the limited number of channels, most \"serious\" hobby radio-controlled models operate on other bands.\n\nThe RCRS service has 50 channels just for model aircraft in the 72–73 MHz range, and 30 more channels for surface models such as cars and boats in the 75.4–76 MHz range. 0.75 watts is allowed on these numbered channels. Licensed amateur radio operators can use any amateur frequency for R/C, but those enthusiasts tend to use frequencies in their 6-meter band.\n\nPart 15 devices\nMany toy R/C cars and wireless keyboards and mice operate on the 27 MHz R/C channels, especially 27.145 MHz. But most of these devices run far less than 4 watts and do not operate under the RCRS service. Instead, they operate under the FCC's Part 15 rules, which allow a wide variety of low powered devices to use the frequencies from 26.96 to 27.28 MHz, which covers CB Channels 1 through 27.\n\nSome other of the R/C toys operate on the 49 MHz Part 15 channels, and often a pair of R/C cars will be sold with one on 27.145 and one on 49.860 to avoid interference. This allows less selective, and therefore less expensive, receivers to be used than if they were using channels in the same band.\n\nIn the days when CB required a license, some low-powered or toy walkie-talkies were exempt because they operated within Part 15. However, in 1976, the FCC phased in a shift of these 100 mW devices to the 49 MHz band, with operation on the CB frequencies to cease in 1983. More recently in the 1990s, low-powered handhelds using FM voice on the 27 MHz radio-control channels were also sold to operate legally under Part 15.\n\nBroadband over Power Lines (BPL) technology uses a wide range of HF frequencies to transmit data (3.5 through 30 MHz), which includes the CB frequencies. There is great potential for interference, as power lines were never specifically designed to shield radio frequencies. RF leakage from BPL is regulated under Part 15 and is a big problem for amateur radio operators across all frequencies that the BPL uses.\n\nISM devices\nAnother class of devices operating in the 27 MHz band are ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) devices regulated by the FCC's Part 18 rules. Induction welding of plastics, and some types of diathermy machines commonly operate in this range. These devices centered on 27.12 MHz with a tolerance of ±163 kHz, that is, 26.957 to 27.283 MHz.\n\nAdjacent frequency bands\nAdjacent frequencies are often used by illegal operators using modified CB or amateur radio equipment. Operators sometimes refer to this activity as freebanding.\n\nThe Industrial/Business Radio Pool of the Private Land Mobile Radio Services has several channels just above the Citizen's Band, at 27.430, 27.450, 27.470, 27.490, 27.510, and 27.530 MHz.\n\nThe federal government has the frequencies from 27.540 up to 28.000. Many civilian agencies use, or used to use, the frequencies 27.575 and 27.585 for low-power use. The US Coast Guard Auxiliary uses 27.980 MHz, it is similar to the Civil Air Patrol Frequency 26.620 Mhz.\n\nAmateur radio has an allocation starting at 28.000 MHz in the 10-meter band.\n\nBelow the Citizen's Band, the military has the frequencies from 26.480 to 26.960 MHz. The Civil Air Patrol has 26.620 MHz, though it now uses mostly VHF frequencies. In the 1950s through the 1970s CAP volunteers with crystal-controlled CBs would put this frequency in their radios. Currently VHF military frequencies are more often used (the CAP is part of the US Air Force), as among other reasons, VHF radios are easier to acquire through military logistics than CB radios.\n\nBelow that is a broadcast auxiliary service band, the 11-meter shortwave band, and the 12-meter amateur band.\n\nReferences \n\nUnited States\nRadio in the United States\nTrucking industry in the United States"
]
|
[
"Steven Van Zandt",
"Radio host and entrepreneur",
"what radio show was he host of ?",
"Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock",
"when did he start hosting it?",
"Since 2002,",
"was the show popular?",
"As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets.",
"what international markets are these?",
"in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.",
"was his show popular internationally?",
"I don't know.",
"what did he do as an enterpreneur?",
"Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network.",
"what were the radio channels?",
"One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show."
]
| C_91ad05b854814c13ad2b4af3dd0d195a_0 | what kind of music does his radio show play? | 8 | what kind of music does Steven Van Zandt radio show play? | Steven Van Zandt | Radio host Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008. On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. Program director Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon. CANNOTANSWER | On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, | Steven Van Zandt (né Lento; born November 22, 1950), also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, activist and author. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles in several television drama series, including as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos (1999–2007) and as Frank Tagliano in Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, intermittently active since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Van Zandt has produced music, written songs, and had his own songs covered by Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Nancy Sinatra, Pearl Jam, Artists United Against Apartheid, and the Iron City Houserockers, among others.
Early life
Van Zandt was born Steven Lento on November 22, 1950 to Mary (née Lento) Van Zandt, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is of part Italian descent; his grandfather was from Calabria and his grandmother's parents were from Naples. His mother, Mary, remarried in 1957 and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Brewster Van Zandt. The family moved to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven.
Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age, when he learned how to play the guitar. He watched the performances of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964, and referred to the former as "The Big Bang of Rock n' Roll". He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, and he later became friends with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Around August 1964, he formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short-lived. He later formed the Mates in 1965 and joined the Shadows in May 1966. Van Zandt has cited British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India, as early influences.
Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair. He went back to school to appease his mother and graduated in 1968. As a teenager, he was involved in a car accident that caused him to smash his head through the windshield, leaving several scars on his head. To cover this up, he began wearing hats, and later, large bandanas, which has become his characteristic look.
Actor Billy Van Zandt is Van Zandt's half-brother and actress Adrienne Barbeau is his ex sister-in-law. He also has a half-sister named Kathi, who is a writer.
Career
Band member
Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and pre-E Street bandmate of Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen met Van Zandt for the first time in 1965 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown. Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together" with the Shadows. They performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in road construction for two years, before returning to show business. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells. The tour ended in Miami on December 31, 1974 with Dick Clark's Good Old Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Deauville Star Theater. After going back to Jersey, Van Zandt continued wearing Hawaiian shirts because he did not particularly like winter, which was how he got the nickname "Miami Steve".
He co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Van Zandt's nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed. He also produced Southside Johnny's first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southside Johnny's music which helped provide them with the success that they achieved.
Van Zandt then started to switch between writing for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and touring with the E Street Band. He confirmed in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that he arranged the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" in 1975 when Springsteen was at a loss, earning him a spot in the E Street Band shortly thereafter. In the Wings For Wheels documentary, Springsteen revealed that Van Zandt was partially responsible for the signature guitar line in "Born to Run"; "Arguably Steve's greatest contribution to my music." Ultimately, Van Zandt officially joined the E Street Band on July 20, 1975 during the first show of the Born to Run Tour.
In those early years, Van Zandt supplied a great deal of the lead guitar work for the band in concert, as can be seen on the 1975 concert DVD within Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition (later released as the CD Hammersmith Odeon London '75). In 1984, Van Zandt left the E Street Band. He originally joined to see Bruce Springsteen rise in success, and once the band rose to that success he left. Despite leaving the band, he appeared as a special guest at certain concerts on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and appeared in a couple of videos, including the one for "Glory Days".
Later in life, Van Zandt returned to the E Street Band when it was reformed (briefly in 1995, and on an ongoing basis since 1999) and remains a member. By this time, his guitar playing had mostly been reduced to a background rhythm role, due to Nils Lofgren's position in the band and his capability as a lead guitarist. In addition, Springsteen had begun taking many more guitar solos as his music became more guitar-centered. Van Zandt said on the Howard Stern Show that he is okay with being second in command, especially since he has been in charge before with his solo music and his role in Lilyhammer. Notwithstanding this, among E Street Band members he often had the second-most amount of "face time" in concert after Clarence Clemons, frequently mugging and posing for the audience and sometimes delivering his unpolished, nasal backing vocals while sharing a microphone with Springsteen. His playing or singing is most prominently featured on the songs "Glory Days", "Two Hearts", "Long Walk Home" (which featured a Van Zandt outro vocal solo during live performances) "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Badlands", "Ramrod", and "Murder Incorporated", among others like the live versions of "Rosalita". He often trades vocals with Springsteen in live versions of "Prove It All Night". He features prominently in the video for "Glory Days", sharing the spotlight with Springsteen during the choruses, while swapping lines with him during the (non)fade, and in live versions he does the same. During the E Street Band's performance at the Super Bowl in 2009, Van Zandt was the most prominently featured member of the band, playing a guitar solo on the final number of the set, "Glory Days," as well as sharing lead vocals and exchanging humorous banter with Springsteen.
Songwriter, arranger, producer
Van Zandt became a songwriter and producer for fellow Jersey shore act Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1974, penning their signature song "I Don't Want to Go Home", co-writing other songs for them with Springsteen, and producing their most-acclaimed record, Hearts of Stone. As such, Van Zandt became a key contributor to the Jersey Shore sound. He also produced two Gary U.S. Bonds albums. Van Zandt then went on to share production credits on the classic Springsteen albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. The first Springsteen song he co-produced was "Hungry Heart." In 1989, Jackson Browne covered the 1983 Van Zandt composition "I Am A Patriot" on his World in Motion album. Van Zandt has produced a number of other records, including an uncredited effort on the Iron City Houserockers' Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive). Less successful was his work on Lone Justice's second album Shelter, which was a career-ending flop for the Los Angeles cowpunk band.
In 1989, Van Zandt wrote "While You Were Looking at Me" for Michael Monroe's album Not Fakin' It and co-wrote videohits "Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" and "Smoke Screen". He was an arranger and backing vocalist for a few songs on the album. In 1992, he produced Austin TX-based Arc Angels' debut album. In 1991 Van Zandt produced a successful album, Spirit of Love, for Nigerian superstar and raggae icon, Majek Fashek. In 1992, Van Zandt wrote and produced "All Alone on Christmas" for the soundtrack of the Chris Columbus film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which yielded singer Darlene Love her first hit since "A Fine, Fine Boy" from 1963, thirty-one years earlier.
In 1994, Van Zandt produced the eponymous debut album of the punk rock band Demolition 23 which featured ex-Hanoi Rocks members Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa. Van Zandt also co-wrote six songs for the album with Monroe and Jude Wilder. In 1995, Van Zandt aided Meat Loaf with the song "Amnesty Is Granted" off of his Welcome to the Neighborhood album. In 2004, he contributed the song "Baby Please Don't Go" to Nancy Sinatra's self-titled album.
Solo artist
During the summer of 1981, EMI-America approached Van Zandt with a record deal due to his success with the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He began fronting an on-and-off group known as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, while Springsteen was working on Nebraska. The band included Dino Danelli on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass, and the Miami Horns. They made their live debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999.
Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide.
In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
His fourth album, 1989's Revolution, attracted little attention. Later in 1989, Van Zandt recorded another album, Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive with his garage band The Lost Boys. Although the album remains unreleased, several tracks from it were heard on the Sopranos and Lilyhammer television shows: including "Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive", "Affection", and "Come for Me". "Affection" appeared on The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Music From the HBO Original Series).
Due to a loss of recording contract, his next album, Born Again Savage, which was recorded in 1994, was not released until 1999. In 1995, Van Zandt wrote, produced, and sang "The Time of Your Life" for the soundtrack to the film Nine Months. He also toured with Bon Jovi during the first European leg of their These Days Tour.
Van Zandt's song "Under The Gun" was covered by Carla Olson & The Textones on their Detroit '85 Live & Unreleased album which was released in 2008. Another of his songs, "All I Needed Was You", appeared on the 2013 Carla Olson album Have Harmony, Will Travel.
On April 29, 2013, Van Zandt performed a cover of Frank Sinatra's "My Kind of Town" at a Springsteen concert in Oslo, Norway, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. Although the song was featured in the Lilyhammer season one episode "My Kind of Town," it was not released as a single until September 23, 2014, when it was "the Coolest Song in the World" on Underground Garage to help promote the show. It was released under the title "Frank Tagliano Sings! My Kind of Town" and the lyrics were changed to be about Lillehammer, Norway, instead of Chicago. Van Zandt performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 9, 2014, to help promote the series. Van Zandt performed all the music for Lilyhammer from season 2 on and released Lilyhammer: The Score on December 16, 2014.
Van Zandt reformed his band, the Disciples of Soul, for the first time since 1990 to play their only European show of 2016 at the O2 Indigo Lounge in London for BluesFest on October 29, 2016. The new Disciples included Richie Sambora and Marc Ribler on guitar, Eddie Manion on saxophone, Hook Herrara on harmonica, Leo Green on tenor sax, Richard Mecurio on drums, Jack Daley on bass, Andy Burton on B3 organ, Clifford Carter on piano, Danny Sadownick on percussion, Tommy Walsh and Matt Holland on trumpet, Neil Sidwell on trombone, George Millard on flute, and a women's section called the Divas of Soul (Julie Maguire, Sarah Carpenter and Jess Greenfield) on backing vocals. They played a series of Van Zandt's own solo songs, songs he wrote for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a song he co-wrote for the Breakers, cover songs, and "Goodbye", a song that he performed with the Lost Boys. His plans included a European tour during the summer of 2017 and a tour of the United States in the fall. Van Zandt insists that he is not leaving the E Street Band and he is only touring because the band is not on the road.
Van Zandt announced in November 2016 that he was in the process of remastering and reissuing his albums for a 2017 release, including the unreleased Lost Boys album. Additionally, Van Zandt has stated that he was planning on releasing a new cover album, including a cover of Etta James' "The Blues Is My Business", as well as new recordings of songs Van Zandt wrote for others, including Southside Johnny, that he describes as "me covering me." The album is a soul record, composed of a 15 piece band including 5 horns and 3 singers. Van Zandt revealed that Richie Mercurio plays drums on the album.
On February 9, 2017, Van Zandt released "Saint Valentine's Day," a cover of the song, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," that he originally wrote for the Cocktail Slippers, as a single. The song was repeatedly played on the Underground Garage radio show.
He debuted his new album at the annual Rock and Roll for Children event at the Fillmore Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, on March 18, 2017. Van Zandt debuted a doo-wop song called "The City Weeps Tonight," that was an outtake from Men Without Women. At the end of the show, he covered "Bye Bye Johnny" as a tribute to the late Chuck Berry. According to Backstreets, Van Zandt's new album was going to be called Soulfire, titled after the song he co-wrote for the Breakers. The album was officially released on May 19, 2017.
Van Zandt released his first official live album, Soulfire Live!, recorded with the Disciples of Soul during their 2017 tour of the same name, on April 27, 2018 via iTunes. A 7 LP vinyl box set, CD, and two-disc Blu-ray video were released on February 15, 2019 via Wicked Cool Records/UMe. Consisting of the best performances from their North American and European concerts, the collection feature Little Steven and his 15-strong band taking you on a musical history lesson as they blast through an arsenal of songs spanning rock, pop, soul, blues, funk, doo-wop, reggae and everything in between. Of note, is a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded at The Roundhouse in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney.
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul recorded a cover of Elvis Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", featuring actor Kurt Russell on lead vocals, for the 2018 film The Christmas Chronicles.
On March 8, 2019 Van Zandt announced the May 3, 2019 CD, digital and vinyl release of Summer of Sorcery via Wicked Cool/UME. It was written, arranged, and produced by him at his Renegade Studios in New York City and marks his first new album of original material in 20 years. A tour for the album began in May 2019, but was cancelled in September 2019 due to illness.
Van Zandt finally reissued his albums in the 7 LP and 4-CD box set, Rock N Roll Rebel: The Early Work, released on December 6, 2019. Limited to 1,000 copies, it includes the first United States pressing of 1989's Revolution, as well as the first vinyl release of Born Again Savage, originally released in 1999. The box set also includes rare outtakes and live performances. The Lost Boys album, however, remains unreleased. Van Zandt stated that the album contains his favorite songs that he recorded and wants to wait until the album can be "properly promoted."
Actor
Until 1999, Van Zandt had no professional acting experience. His main focus had been music, whether it was the multiple bands he participated in, groups he composed pieces for, or music he wrote on his own. Then, he was asked to play a part in The Sopranos, and from there on, acting became part of Van Zandt's career.
The Sopranos
In 1999, Van Zandt took one of the core roles in The Sopranos, playing level-headed but deadly mob consigliere and strip club owner Silvio Dante. Van Zandt had no acting experience, and the unusual casting choice was made by series creator David Chase.
Chase invited Van Zandt to audition after seeing him induct The Rascals at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being impressed with his humorous appearance and presence. Van Zandt had never acted before; he auditioned for the role of Tony Soprano, but HBO felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist. Van Zandt eventually agreed to star on the show as consigliere Silvio Dante, and his real-life spouse Maureen (née Santoro) was cast as his on-screen wife Gabriella.
In late 2008, Van Zandt reprised his role as Silvio Dante in an advertisement for the popular online game World of Warcraft, where he can be seen quoting Michael Corleone's famous phrase from The Godfather Part III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."
Tussles in Brussels
Van Zandt recorded the narration for The Hives biography on their concert DVD Tussles in Brussels (2004).
Hotel Cæsar
In 2010, Van Zandt appeared as himself in the Norwegian soap opera Hotel Cæsar, broadcast on Norway's biggest commercial channel TV2 Norway. He also appeared on Scandinavia's largest talkshow Skavlan.
Lilyhammer
In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled Lilyhammer, the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a Sopranos-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.
The Irishman
Van Zandt appears in the Martin Scorsese-produced gangster epic The Irishman as singer Jerry Vale, lip-syncing Vale's Al Di La.
Radio host and entrepreneur
Radio host
Since 2002, Van Zandt has hosted Little Steven's Underground Garage, a weekly syndicated radio show that celebrates garage rock and similar rock subgenres from the 1950s to the present day. As of December 2006, the show is heard on over 200 US radio stations and in some international markets. For example, in Spain it has beamed through Rock & Gol since 2007 and later on Rock FM Radio in Finland; Radio Helsinki started beaming Little Steven's Underground Garage in August 2008.
On October 20, 2011, the program recorded its 500th show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York's Times Square. The guests included the band Green Day; Steve Buscemi, star of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire; Vincent Pastore, aka "Big Pussy Bonpensiero" from The Sopranos; actor and director Tim Robbins; and singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.
Program director
Van Zandt is also the program director for two radio channels for the Sirius Satellite Radio network. The channels continuously broadcast on satellite radio in the US, and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. One channel, named Underground Garage, has the same philosophy and musical mandate as his own radio show. On-air hosts on the channel include original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, singer/guitarist Joan Jett, former record executive Kid Leo, punk rock singer Handsome Dick Manitoba and rock entrepreneur Kim Fowley. The second channel, named the Outlaw Country, presents the edgier side of country music, both roots and contemporary. On-air hosts for this channel include pop-culture satirist Mojo Nixon.
Record label
In December 2004, Van Zandt launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records.
The first album released by Wicked Cool was Fuzz for the Holidays by Davie Allan and the Arrows, released on December 14, 2004. The first set of records released by Wicked Cool also included new albums from Underground Garage favorites the Charms, the Chesterfield Kings and the Cocktail Slippers; and CBGB Forever, a tribute to the famous, now-defunct venue. The label continues to release new albums from the next generation of garage rockers including the Cocktail Slippers as well as volumes of Little Steven's Underground Garage presents The Coolest Songs in the World, a compilation of selected songs from the Underground Garage radio show's popular feature, the "Coolest Song in the World This Week". In 2007, the label signed The Launderettes. The label's first Halloween and Christmas themed compilations were released in 2008. Lost Cathedral is a subsidiary label of Wicked Cool Records and home to the band Crown of Thorns.
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation
In 2007, Van Zandt launched the non-profit Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and its TeachRock project, which creates K-12 national curriculum. TeachRock includes interdisciplinary, arts-driven materials designed to keep students engaged and in school. The initiative features lesson plans covering topics in social studies, general music, language arts, media studies, and more while aligning with national and state education standards. The material is available at no cost to educators.
Musical director
In September 2006, Van Zandt assembled and directed an all-star band to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere (and formal ESPN debut) of Monday Night Football. The all-star lineup included Little Richard, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Questlove (The Roots), Charlie Daniels, Bootsy Collins, Chris Burney (Bowling for Soup), and Bernie Worrell.
Since 2007, Van Zandt has been the director of a music selection committee for the video game Rock Band; he is in charge of selecting new music for the game.
Activist career
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt used his celebrity as a musician to fight issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa by creating a group called the Artists United Against Apartheid.
This activist group was created in 1985 by Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker. Van Zandt and Baker assembled over 54 different artists to record an album entitled Sun City in order to raise awareness about the apartheid policy in South Africa. The title referred to a resort in South Africa that catered to wealthy white tourists. The resort upheld racist apartheid policies, yet many famous entertainers chose to perform there. Artists that took part in the making of the album included Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.
The Sun City project was originally meant to only be one song, but other musicians contributed their own pieces which transformed it into a full-length album. Sun City was one of the first musical collaborations among major recording stars to support a political cause rather than a social cause. The album raised over $1 million in support of anti-apartheid efforts. The primary goal of the album and foundation was to draw attention to South Africa's racist policy of apartheid and to support a cultural boycott of the country.
Van Zandt was a part of the 1989 charity single, "Spirit of the Forest", dedicated to saving rain forests.
Later in his career, Van Zandt worked to raise awareness about the US military interference in governments of Central America and other issues.
Author
Van Zandt's memoir Unrequited Infatuations was published September 28, 2021 by Hachette Books.
Tours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Born to Run tours, 1975–1977
Darkness Tour, 1978–1979
The River Tour, 1980–1981
Tunnel of Love Tour, 1988
Reunion Tour, 1999–2000
The Rising Tour, 2002–2003
Vote for Change Tour, 2004
Magic Tour, 2007–2008
Working on a Dream Tour, 2009
Wrecking Ball Tour, 2012–2013
High Hopes Tour, 2014
River Tour 2016/Oceania '17, 2016–2017
Personal life
Van Zandt married actress Maureen Santoro in New York City on December 31, 1982. Later she portrayed his wife on The Sopranos. Bruce Springsteen was the best man at their wedding, Little Richard presided over it, and it featured Percy Sledge singing "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Philanthropy
Van Zandt is an Honorary board member of Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged U.S. public schools. He was also awarded the fourth annual "Big Man of the Year" award at the organization's 2013 Right to Rock Benefit Event.
He and his wife Maureen also serve on the Count Basie Theatre's Board of Directors, and were named as that organization's honorary capital campaign chairs in 2015.
Van Zandt hosts the annual "Policeman's Ball," donating the funds raised to the Detectives Endowment Association Widows and Children's Fund and NYPD With Arms Wide Open, a foundation that supports NYPD officers with children who have special needs.
Discography
Men Without Women (1982)
Voice of America (1984)
Freedom – No Compromise (1987)
Revolution (1989)
Nobody Loves and Leaves Alive (1989 - unreleased)
Born Again Savage (1999)
Soulfire (2017)
Summer of Sorcery (2019)
Filmography
The Sopranos as Silvio Dante (1999–2007)
Lilyhammer as Frank Tagliano (2012–2014)
The Christmas Chronicles as Wolfie (2018)
The Irishman as Jerry Vale (2019)
References
External links
1950 births
American radio DJs
American rock guitarists
American male singers
American rock singers
American mandolinists
Lead guitarists
Singer-songwriters from New Jersey
Rhythm guitarists
American male guitarists
E Street Band members
Living people
Male actors from New Jersey
Guitarists from New Jersey
Guitarists from Massachusetts
Record producers from New Jersey
Record producers from Massachusetts
American people of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
People of Campanian descent
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
People from Middletown Township, New Jersey
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes members
Jersey Shore musicians
American male television actors
20th-century American guitarists
Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul members
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts | true | [
"Kind of Pluto is an Australian band. It was formed in 2002 by Melbourne singer/songwriter Steven Gates and drummer Simm Thom. Later, they added keyboardist Ben Ryderman and bassist Tommy Kende.\n\nGates, who also performs with the comedy group Tripod, has been writing and performing his own original music since the age of sixteen. Before Kind of Pluto, Gates refined his songwriting skills by performing solo acoustic spots all over Australia. In 1999, he took his songs as far as New York City and Philadelphia. Gates decided to create an acoustic duo with friend and drummer Simm Thom.\n\nKind of Pluto's first EP was launched on 19 October 2001 at Melbourne's 9th Ward.\n\nKind of Pluto received nationwide airplay with their first release, a self-titled EP described by Time Off Magazine as \"brilliantly warm, fresh and ethereal. Absolutely shines with inspiration.\" The EP's first track, Familiar, was given strong rotation on the Triple J network. A 'Live at the Wireless' session for Richard Kingsmill's Oz Music Show brought them much attention from listeners and record companies alike. \"Everyone's A Pornstar\" was played on the Triple J network as well. The band was also chosen by Nova 100 as Melbourne Band of the Week and enjoyed extensive radio play with Sleepwalker. Other radio stations to support Kind of Pluto include Triple R and PBS.\n\nSince early 2005, the band has been on an extended hiatus - perhaps never to return - with Ben Rynderman departing the group at the end of 2004.\n\nFormer members\nBassist: Christine Carley\nBassist: Brett Canning\nKeyboard: Ben Rynderman\n\nDiscography\n\nKind of Pluto EP\n\nExternal links\n https://web.archive.org/web/20071202134928/http://www.kindofpluto.com/ Kind of Pluto Homepage\n http://www.myspace.com/kopuniverse Kind of Pluto Fan Page\n http://www.myspace.com/kopbottomlip Kind of Pluto Myspace (fan page)\n https://web.archive.org/web/20071122004542/http://chaos.com/product/ep_692597_225588.html Kind of Pluto EP at Chaos.com\n\nVictoria (Australia) musical groups",
"\"FloriDada\" is a song by Animal Collective, released as the first single from their 2016 album Painting With. It was released on November 30, 2015 by Domino Records. Avey Tare explained that the song was \"sort of inspired by hating on people from Florida. I was driving in L.A. and flipping through the radio dial and came across a morning radio show where they're just talking all the time. They had a segment called, like, 'Dumb Things People Are Doing In Florida.' It kind of bothered me. ... Everybody—they kind of agree that Florida's such a weird place, know what I mean? But in a way, that's part of the charm of it.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was released on January 8, 2016. It was produced and directed by the Brooklyn, New York artist collective PFFR. The video had its television premiere on Adult Swim's Toonami block on January 9, 2016.\n\nReferences\n\nAnimal Collective songs\nDomino Recording Company singles\n2015 songs\nSongs about Florida\n2015 singles"
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[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)"
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues? | 1 | What songs did Idlewild contribute to the post electric blues? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | false | [
"\"Voodoo Chile\" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and recorded in 1968 for the third Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland. It is based on the Muddy Waters blues song \"Rollin' Stone\", but with original lyrics and music. At 15 minutes, it is Hendrix's longest studio recording and features additional musicians in what has been described as a studio jam.\n\n\"Voodoo Chile\" was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, after a late night jam session with Hendrix, Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, organist Steve Winwood, and bassist Jack Casady. The song became the basis for \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\", recorded by the Experience the next day and one of Hendrix's best-known songs.\n\n\"Chile\" is a phonetic approximation of \"child\" without the \"d\". In the UK, \"Voodoo Chile\" was also used as the title of the 1970 single release of \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\", which has caused confusion regarding the two songs.\n\nBackground and lyrics\n\"Voodoo Chile\" evolved from \"Catfish Blues\", a song that Hendrix performed regularly during 1967 and early 1968. \"Catfish Blues\" was a homage to Muddy Waters, made up of a medley of verses based on Waters' songs, including \"Rollin' Stone\", \"Still a Fool\", and \"Rollin' and Tumblin'\". In April 1968, Hendrix recorded a number of solo demos in a New York hotel, including an early \"Voodoo Chile\", which he had been developing for some time. It used elements of \"Catfish Blues\" with new lyrics by Hendrix and included a vocal and guitar unison line.\n\nMusic critic Charles Shaar Murray describes \"Voodoo Chile\" as \"virtually a chronological guided tour of blues styles\" ranging from early Delta blues, through the electric blues of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, to the more sophisticated style of B.B. King, and the \"cosmic blurt\" of John Coltrane. Lyrically, he adds, the song is \"part of a long, long line of supernatural brag songs\". Hendrix's song opens with:\n\n\"Hoochie Coochie Man\", the Muddy Waters/Willie Dixon blues classic, opens:\n\nIn later verses, Hendrix, a fan of science fiction, adds references to \"the outskirts of infinity\" and \"Jupiter's sulfur mines\". Music writer John Perry said of the concept behind the song that it \"blends two of Jimi's great loves, Chicago blues and science fiction—interstellar hootchie kootchie.\"\n\nThe \"chile\" in the title and lyrics is a phonetical approximation of \"child\" pronounced without the \"d\", a spelling that was also used for Hendrix's song \"Highway Chile\".\n\nRecording and composition\nDuring the Electric Ladyland recording sessions at the Record Plant, Hendrix and the band often jammed with other performers at New York City clubs. After one such jam at the nearby the Scene club on May 2, 1968, Hendrix brought a group of about 20 people to the studio. This practice of inviting large groups to the studio led Noel Redding to storm out of the Record Plant earlier that evening and he was not present during the recording of \"Voodoo Chile\". Organist Steve Winwood from Traffic, bassist Jack Casady from Jefferson Airplane, and jazz guitarist Larry Coryell were among those present. Although Coryell was invited to play, he declined and Hendrix proceeded to record \"Voodoo Chile\" with Mitchell, Winwood, and Casady. The remainder were on hand to provide the ambient crowd noise.\n\nWinwood recalled, \"There were no chord sheets, no nothing. He [Hendrix] just started playing. It was a one-take job, with him singing and playing at the same time. He just had such mastery of the instrument and he knew what he was and knew his abilities\". Despite the appearance of spontaneity, engineer Eddie Kramer said that such sessions were not informal. \"Jimi plotted and planned out nearly all of them. He'd reason that if he had his songs together, if he really wanted to pull out what he heard in his head, he needed the right people ... and that's what he did\". During the recording session, Hendrix is heard advising Winwood on his organ part.\n\nRecording began about 7:30 am and three takes were recorded, according to biographer John McDermott and Kramer. During the first take, Hendrix showed the others the song while the recording equipment was adjusted. During the second take, Hendrix broke a string (these two takes were later edited together and released as \"Voodoo Chile Blues\" on the posthumous Hendrix compilation album Blues). The third take provided the master that was used on Electric Ladyland. Music writer John Perry claims there were at least six takes recorded, but several were incomplete.\n\n\"Voodoo Chile\" opens with a series of hammer-on notes, similar to Albert Collins' intro to his \"Collins Shuffle\". Hendrix played through a Fender Bassman top, providing a \"very warm\" amp sound with his guitar tuned down a whole tone. Although Hendrix's vocal and guitar are featured, the other musicians make contributions, taking it beyond the blues. McDermott describes Winwood's mid-song organ part as \"a very English, hornpipe-like dance that was very Traffic-like\". However, Perry calls it a \"modal, raga-like phrase\", which Hendrix responds to by \"improvising a mixed blues/eastern scale\". Mitchell anticipates changes in direction and Casady provides a pulsing, solid foundation. At fifteen minutes, it is Hendrix's longest studio recording.\n\nHendrix wanted to create the atmosphere of an informal club jam, but the recording did not capture sufficient background noise. So the onlookers provided additional crowd sounds, which were recorded from 9:00 am to 9:45 am. Hendrix and Eddie Kramer later mixed the track, adding tape delay and other treatments.\n\nAlthough many live recordings of \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\" have been issued, only the three takes of the original studio jam, \"Voodoo Chile\", are known to exist. A composite of the first two takes is included on the 1994 Blues album.\n\n\"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\"\n\nThe day after recording \"Voodoo Chile\", Hendrix with Mitchell and Noel Redding returned to the studio for the filming of a short documentary. Rather than repeat what had been recorded the day before, they improvised on \"Voodoo Chile\", using some of the imagery and guitar lines. As Redding recalled: \"We learned that song in the studio ... They had the cameras rolling on us as we played it\". The song became \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\", one of Hendrix's signature songs, and has been covered by numerous artists. Both songs were released on the Electric Ladyland album.\n\nConfusion over title\nJimi Hendrix occasionally used different names and spellings for some of his songs. In his handwritten lyrics, he used \"Voodoo Chile\" for the longer song, while he used both \"Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)\" and \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\" for the following one recorded with the Experience. In his handwritten album notes for Electric Ladyland sent to his record company, he listed the songs as \"Voodoo Chile\" and \"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)\"; when the album was released in the US by Reprise Records on October 16, 1968, these spellings for the two songs were used. When the album was subsequently released by Track Records in the UK, the songs were listed as \"Voodoo Chile\" and \"Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)\". In 1970, the \"(Slight Return)\" song was released as a single in the UK and it was simply titled \"Voodoo Chile\", without the further designation. Later album reissues usually follow the Reprise or Track album spellings, depending on the country of origin.\n\nNotes\nFootnotes\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\n1968 songs\nSongs written by Jimi Hendrix\nThe Jimi Hendrix Experience songs\nBlues songs\nSong recordings produced by Jimi Hendrix",
"Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes with keyboards and harmonica). From its beginnings in the early to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal. \n\nBlues rock started with rock musicians in the United Kingdom and the United States performing American blues songs. They typically recreated electric Chicago blues songs, such as those by Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed, at faster tempos and with a more aggressive sound common to rock. In the UK, the style was popularized by groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, who put several blues songs into the pop charts. In the US, Lonnie Mack, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Canned Heat were among the earliest exponents. These bands also \"attempted to play long, involved improvisations which were commonplace on jazz records\". In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the style became more hard rock-oriented. In the US, Johnny Winter, the Allman Brothers Band, and ZZ Top represented a hard rock trend, while Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, and Foghat in the UK pursued a heavier sound.\n\nIn the 1980s, more traditional blues styles influenced blues rock, which continues into the 2000s, with more of a return to basics. Along with hard rock, blues rock songs became the core of the music played on album-oriented rock radio in the United States, and later the classic rock format established there during the 1980s.\n\nCharacteristics\nBlues rock can be characterized by bluesy improvisation, extended boogie jams typically focused on electric guitar solos, and often a heavier, riff-oriented sound and feel to the songs than found in typical Chicago-style blues. Blues rock bands \"borrow[ed] the idea of an instrumental combo and loud amplification from rock & roll\". It is also often played at a fast tempo, again distinguishing it from the blues.\n\nBlues rock songs often follow typical blues structures, such as twelve-bar blues, sixteen-bar blues, etc. They also use the I-IV-V progression, though there are exceptions, some pieces having a \"B\" section, while others remain on the I. The Allman Brothers Band's version of \"Stormy Monday\", which uses chord substitutions based on Bobby \"Blue\" Bland's 1961 rendition, adds a solo section where \"the rhythm shifts effortlessly into an uptempo 6/8-time jazz feel\". The key is usually major, but can also be minor, such as in \"Black Magic Woman\".\n\nOne notable difference is the frequent use of a straight eighth-note or rock rhythm instead of triplets usually found in blues. An example is Cream's \"Crossroads\". Although it was adapted from Robert Johnson's \"Cross Road Blues\", the bass \"combines with drums to create and continually emphasize continuity in the regular metric drive\".\n\n1960s–1970s\n\nRock uses driving rhythms and electric guitar techniques such as distortion and power chords already used by 1950s blues guitarists, particularly Memphis bluesmen such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare. Characteristics that blues rock adopted from electric blues include its dense texture, basic blues band instrumentation, rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-bending blues-scale guitar solos, strong beat, thick riff-laden texture, and posturing performances. Precursors to blues rock included the Chicago blues musicians Elmore James, Albert King, and Freddie King, who began incorporating rock and roll elements into their blues music during the late 1950s to early 1960s.\n\n1963 marked the appearance of American rock guitar soloist Lonnie Mack, whose idiosyncratic, fast-paced electric blues guitar style came to be identified with the advent of blues rock as a distinct genre. His instrumentals from that period were recognizable as blues or rhythm and blues tunes, but he relied heavily upon fast-picking techniques derived from traditional American country and bluegrass genres. The best-known of these are the 1963 Billboard hit singles \"Memphis\" and \"Wham!\". Around the same time, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was formed. Fronted by blues harp player and singer Paul Butterfield, it included two members from Howlin' Wolf's touring band, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, and later two electric guitarists, Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. In 1965, its debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was released. AllMusic's Michael Erlewine commented, \"Used to hearing blues covered by groups like the Rolling Stones, that first album had an enormous impact on young (and primarily White) rock players.\" The second album East West (1966) introduced extended soloing – the 13 minute instrumental title track included jazz and Indian raga influences – that served as a model for psychedelic and acid rock. In 1965, avid blues collectors Bob Hite and Alan Wilson formed Canned Heat. Their early recordings focused heavily on electric versions of Delta blues songs, but soon began exploring long musical improvisations (\"jams\") built around John Lee Hooker songs. Other popular mid-1960s groups, such as the Doors and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, also adapted songs by blues artists to include elements of rock. Butterfield, Canned Heat, and Joplin performed at the Monterey (1967) and Woodstock (1969) festivals.\n\nIn the UK, several musicians honed their skills in a handful of British blues bands, primarily those of Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner. While the early British rhythm and blues groups, such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, incorporated American R&B, rock and roll, and pop, John Mayall took a more distinctly electric blues approach. In 1966, he released Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, the first of several influential blues rock albums. When Eric Clapton left Mayall to form Cream, they created a hybrid style with blues, rock, and jazz improvisation, which was the most innovative to date. British band Fleetwood Mac initially played traditionally-oriented electric blues, but soon evolved. Their guitarist Peter Green, who was Clapton's replacement with Mayall, brought many innovations to their music.\n\nThe electric guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix (a veteran of many American rhythm and blues and soul groups from the early-mid-1960s) and his power trios, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys, had a broad and lasting influence on the development of blues rock, especially for guitarists. Clapton continued to explore several musical styles and contributed to bringing blues rock into the mainstream. In the late 1960s, Jeff Beck, with his band the Jeff Beck Group, developed blues rock into a form of heavy rock. Jimmy Page, who replaced Beck in the Yardbirds, followed suit with Led Zeppelin and became a major force in the 1970s heavy metal scene. Other blues rock musicians in the 1970s include Dr. Feelgood, Rory Gallagher and Robin Trower.\n\nBeginning in the early 1970s, American bands such as Aerosmith fused blues with a hard rock edge. Blues rock grew to include Southern rock bands, like the Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while the British scene, except for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat, became focused on heavy metal innovation.\n\n1980s–present\nWhile blues rock and hard rock shared many similarities in the early 1970s, more traditional blues styles influenced blues rock in the 1980s, when the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded their best-known works, and the 1990s, which saw guitarists Gary Moore, Jeff Healey, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd become popular concert attractions. Groups such as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the White Stripes brought an edgier, more diverse style into the 2000s, while the Black Keys returned to basics.\n\nSee also\n List of blues rock musicians\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\n \nRock\nFusion music genres\nBritish rock music genres\nBritish styles of music\nAmerican styles of music\nAmerican rock music genres\n1960s in music"
]
|
[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)",
"What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | Where was the band performing during this time? | 2 | Where was Idlewild performing during 2008-2010? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | true | [
"The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan's endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988.\n\nTour\nThe Never Ending Tour 2002 started in Florida, where Dylan had not performed since September 1999. The tour continued through the southern United States.\n\nThe tour then moved on to Europe where Dylan played twenty seven cities in twelve countries including nine concerts in Germany and seven in England.\n\nAfter performing Europe Dylan returned to North America performing in Canada and the United States. During this leg of the tour Dylan returned to the Newport Folk Festival. This was the first time he performed at the festival since the controversial performance there in July 1965.\n\nAfter completing his US summer tour, Dylan performed a round tour of the United States starting in Seattle, Washington, on October 4 and coming to an end in Fairfax, Virginia, on November 22. It was after this last performance that Charlie Sexton left Bob Dylan's band. He returned to Dylan's band line-up in Summer 2009.\n\nTour dates\n\nFestivals and other miscellaneous performances\n\n<small>\nThis concert was a part of \"Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo\".\nThis concert was a part of \"Newport Folk Festival\".\nThis concert was a part of \"Harley-Davidson, 100th Anniversary\".\nThis concert was a part of \"All For The Sea Annual Benefit Concert\".\nThis concert was a part of \"Janus Jazz Festival\".\nDylan performed two shows that evening.\nThis concert was a part of \"Arizona State Fair\".\n\nBox office score data\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBobLinks – Comprehensive log of concerts and set lists\nBjorner's Still on the Road – Information on recording sessions and performances\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n2002 concert tours",
"The 25th Army Band is an Army National Guard band based in Idaho in the United States.\n\nThe band was originally organized in the fall of 1925 as the Band Section, Headquarters 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, the largest formation of the Idaho Army National Guard, and was located in Caldwell, Idaho. The band was activated for a period of five years during World War II and served in France. In 1954, the 25th Army Band was again activated for federal service and stationed at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. They played a weekly radio show, which aired for ten years. The band returned to Caldwell, Idaho, in 1956 and resumed National Guard status. In 1988, the band moved to Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho, where it is currently based and performs regularly in the Boise Valley.\n\nMembers are traditional Guard soldiers that live throughout Idaho. Their primary mission is to provide musical support to the members of the Guard, the citizens of Idaho and the United States or as overseas missions require. The band performs primarily in Idaho.\n\nNotable events \n During the summer of 1993, the 25th Army Band traveled to perform in France for Annual Training. The band spent three days in Paris playing at the U. S. Residency for Ambassador Pamela Harriman’s official installation. More than 5,000 dignitaries and celebrities representing 70 nations attended the event. Notable guests included Lauren Bacall, Joan Collins and the son of Charles de Gaulle. The remaining eight days were spent in Southern France performing concerts, receptions and parades on the Riviera.\n During the summer of 1994, the Band traveled to Costa Rica for twelve days to play at the Ambassador’s Residency for a 4th of July celebration for over 5,000 Americans and their dependents residing in San Jose and the surrounding area. During that evening, the band played for a formal diplomatic reception.\n In June 2002, the 25th Army Band traveled to Calgary, Alberta and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Performances were played at the Calgary Stampede and at the Station Forces base, (Canadian Army.)\n In August 2005, the Band performed for President George W. Bush for his first visit to Idaho.\n In October 2005, the band was deployed with 400+ Soldiers & Airmen of the Idaho National Guard to help the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This marked the first time in its history that the band was deployed for something other than music.\n\nCommander\nThe 25th Army Band is commanded by CW2 Shad Frazier.\n\nAwards \nThe 25th Army Band has been awarded three unit citations. In 1983 the Band was awarded the State of Idaho Meritorious Unit Award for superior mission performance. In 1988, the band was awarded the Adjutant General’s Outstanding Unit Award for exceptional meritorious and superior performance. This award was presented a second time to the band in 1994.\n\nEnsembles \nThe 25th Army Band comprises different musical segments; the concert band, jazz band, marching band and many small combo groups.\nLarge Group Ensembles: traditional military music ensembles formed from the union of several music performance teams\nCeremonial Band: an ensemble of 30+ members playing traditional Army ceremonial and concert music.\nMarching Band\nMusic Performance Teams: Specialized music support teams playing styles varying from rock and roll to classic quintet music\nThe Regulators - Rock Band: a popular music ensemble performing covers of rock, country, pop, blues and funk music.\nAll Brass No Ammo - a brass group\nWoodwind Group: Saxophone and traditional woodwind group playing both unique arrangements of popular music as well as traditional tunes.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20100922100239/http://idahoarmyguard.org/25AB/index.asp\n\n025\nMusicians from Boise, Idaho"
]
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[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)",
"What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was the band performing during this time?",
"In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut,"
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | How was the turn out? | 3 | How was the turn out at Idlewild's December 2008 shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | false | [
"\"Turn Out the Night\" is a new wave and synthpop song by Amy Holland from the soundtrack for the film Scarface.\n\nSong information\nThe song sampled Flashdance... What a Feeling and was written by Pete Bellotte while the music was composed by Giorgio Moroder. When the song was released on the soundtrack, it was accidentally misprinted as Turn Out The Light and the correction to the song's title, however, was not corrected, leading up to many people thinking the song is called Turn Out The Light but the correct title is Turn Out The Night and it can be proven by the song's lyrics: Turn Out The Night, I can be strong as long as there's daylight. While most of the songs from the Scarface soundtrack were put into Grand Theft Auto III, Turn Out The Night was not. Amy Holland also recorded another song for the Scarface soundtrack \"She's On Fire\" which did end up on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto III. The song is played in the scene where Tony Montana and his friend Manny Ribera arrive at the Babylon Club only to see that Tony's sister Gina is dancing with her boyfriend Fernando.\n\n1983 songs\nAmy Holland songs\nScarface (1983 film)\nSong recordings produced by Giorgio Moroder\nMCA Records singles\nSongs written by Pete Bellotte\nSongs written by Giorgio Moroder",
"\"How You Live (Turn Up The Music)\" is a song written by Cindy Morgan for Point of Grace's seventh studio album How You Live. It is the third single from the album and the group's first release in the country music market. It was produced by Brown Bannister.\n\nThe song was later included on the compilation album WOW Hits 2009.\n\nBackground\nThe song's music video debuted in July 2007, but it was only released to radio that fall.\n\nIn an interview with Christian Music Today, Morgan explained that the song was intended for the secular country market, as the original opening line was \"Make love in the sunlight with all the doors open.\" When Point of Grace expressed interest in the song, she changed the lyric to \"Wake up to the sunlight,\" out of concern that the original lyric \"was [not] going to fly with Christian radio.\"\n\nMusic video\n\"How You Live (Turn Up The Music)\" was the first music video shot by the group since 2001's \"Begin with Me\", and was the first to feature Leigh Cappillino as a member of the group. It was directed by the Erwin Brothers and was shot in Birmingham, Alabama.\n\nThe video shows images of each group member savoring special moments with their families, as well as scenes of the quartet in a vast field at sunset, and during a performance at the Alabama Theatre.\n\nAwards\nIn 2008, the song helped the group earn five nominations at the 39th GMA Dove Awards, including Song of the Year. The song won Country Recorded Song of the Year, while Morgan was named Songwriter of the Year.\n\nLive performance\nHeather Payne is the lead vocalist in the song. When the group became a trio due to Payne's retirement, Cappillino took over the lead vocals, with Denise Jones and Shelley Breen providing the harmonies. The song has also been pitched in a slightly lower key, in order to fit Cappillino's range. The group made its debut as a trio at the Grand Ole Opry in late June 2008, showcasing their new sound.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nPoint of Grace songs\n2007 songs\nWord Records singles\nCurb Records singles\nWarner Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Brown Bannister"
]
|
[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)",
"What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was the band performing during this time?",
"In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut,",
"How was the turn out?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | Where else did they play? | 4 | Where else did Idlewild play besides King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in 2008-2010? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | true | [
"Robert Else (17 November 1876 – 16 September 1955) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Derbyshire in 1901 and 1903.\n\nElse was born at Lea, Holloway, Derbyshire, the son of John Else and his wife Henrietta Lowe. His father was a bobbin maker and in 1881 they were all living with his grandparents at the Old Hat Factory in Wirksworth. Else made his debut for Derbyshire in May 1901 against Surrey, when his scores were 1 and 2. He played again that season against the South Africans when he opened the batting scoring a duck in the first innings and surviving the whole of the second innings for 6 not out. He did not play again until July 1903 when against London County he took a wicket and made his top score of 28. He played his last two matches in 1903 and made little impression in them.\n\nElse was a left-hand batsman and played ten innings in five first-class matches with an average of 7.3 and a top score of 28. He bowled fifteen overs and took 1 first-class wicket for 61 runs in total.\n\nElse died at Broomhill, Sheffield, Yorkshire at the age of 78.\n\nReferences\n\n1876 births\n1955 deaths\nDerbyshire cricketers\nEnglish cricketers\nPeople from Dethick, Lea and Holloway",
"Fredrick Else (31 March 193320 July 2015) was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper. Else gained over 600 professional appearances in his career playing for three clubs, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Barrow.\n\nClub career\nElse was born in Golborne near Wigan on 31 March 1933. Whilst on national service in the north-east he played for amateur club Axwell Park Colliery Welfare in the Derwent Valley League. He attracted the attention of Football League teams and signed as a junior for Preston North End in 1951, and as a professional in 1953. He made his debut for Preston against Manchester City in 1954, but was restricted to 14 appearances over his first three seasons. He eventually became first choice, displacing George Thompson, and played 238 times for North End. During this time Preston's most successful season came in 1957–58, when the club finished as runners up in Division One.\n\nThe 1960–61 season ended in relegation for Preston and Else was sold to neighbours Blackburn Rovers for £20,000. Else became a first choice for Blackburn straight away and played 221 times for the club. A collarbone injury in 1964–65 resulted in a period out of the game, though Else returned to regain the goalkeeper's jersey at Blackburn. Nonetheless the team were relegated the following season and Else was released. During the summer of 1966 Else signed with Barrow of the Fourth Division. Else became part of Barrow's most successful team, with the side winning promotion to the Third Division in his first season there. Else was Barrow's first choice keeper for the entire period that they were in the third division, and played 148 league matches for the club. He retired from football after Barrow's relegation in 1970 following a leg infection. His final season included a brief stint as caretaker manager at Barrow.\n\nHonours\n Football League Division One Runner-up 1957–1958\n Football League Division Four Promotion 1966–1967\n\nInternational career\nElse has been described by fans of the clubs that he played for as one of the best English goalkeepers never to win a full international cap. He did, however, make one appearance for the England B team in 1957 against Scotland B, as well as participating in a Football Association touring side of 1961.\n\nPersonal life and death\nElse met his wife Marjorie in 1949 in Douglas on the Isle of Man. They married when Else was 22 and Marjorie 20, on 29 October 1955, a Saturday morning. The wedding was held in Marjorie's home town of Blackpool and the date was chosen so that the couple could marry in the morning and Else could then travel either to Deepdale, to play for Preston North End's reserve team, or to Bloomfield Road where Preston's first team was due to be playing Blackpool F.C. In the event Else was selected for the reserves and the couple had to travel by bus to Preston.\n\nAfter retiring from football, Else remained in Barrow-in-Furness, becoming a geography and maths teacher at a local secondary school. He retired from teaching in 1999 and moved to Cyprus, though still attended some Barrow matches. Else died in Barrow-in-Furness on 20 July 2015, aged 82.\n\nReferences\n\n2015 deaths\n1933 births\nBarrow A.F.C. managers\nBarrow A.F.C. players\nBlackburn Rovers F.C. players\nPreston North End F.C. players\nPeople from Golborne\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nSchoolteachers from Cumbria\nEnglish Football League players\nEngland B international footballers\nEnglish football managers"
]
|
[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)",
"What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was the band performing during this time?",
"In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut,",
"How was the turn out?",
"I don't know.",
"Where else did they play?",
"In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London."
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | What are some memorable events from when they were performing together? | 5 | What are some memorable events from when Idlewild were performing together? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | false | [
"Slutever is a punk rock band based in Los Angeles, California, consisting of Nicole Snyder and Rachel Gagliardi, both of whom are from Philadelphia. Gagliardi is also a member of Upset.\n\nHistory\nSnyder and Gagliardi met in high school, where they were both enrolled in the same music program. However, they did not begin performing together until they were both in college. By June 2013, Slutever had recorded all six songs that they would later self-release on the EP Almost Famous on February 17, 2015. The band decided to revisit these songs after beginning a tour on the East Coast with Girlpool.\n\nCritical reception\nWriting for Exclaim!, Alison Lang awarded Almost Famous a rating of 7 out of 10, and wrote that it \"maintains Slutever's well-established goofy stoner ethos while also coming across as super polished and assured.\" Robert Christgau gave the EP an A–, writing of the band that \"To call their self-imposed limits principled would misread their purpose. These women don't want to be momentous because what they've achieved already was fucking hard. They don't want to be momentous because enough is enough.\" Brennan Carley wrote in Spin that Slutever \"deliver on their promise of grit-punk with an inescapably memorable twist\" on the EP. The band has been called riot grrrl by some critics, but Snyder has said she disagrees with this characterization, saying that “I think the confusion was made because we were two girls in a loud punk band, but our songs were never about any heavy issues.\"\n\nDiscography\nSorry I'm Not Sorry (self-released single, 2010)\nPretend to be Nice (Bantic single, 2011)\n1994 (Jade Tree 7\", 2013)\nWhite Flag (Quiet Year/Say-10/Earthbound/Songs From The Road single, 2014)\nAlmost Famous (self-released EP, 2015)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMusical groups from Los Angeles\nPunk rock groups from California\nAmerican musical duos\nJade Tree (record label) artists",
"mProductive is a BlackBerry To Do List application that brings Calendar, Tasks and Memos together in one place. The application provides BlackBerry users with a unified view into items stored in the smartphone's native Calendar, Task and Memo datastores and allows new action items to be created from calls, emails and SMS's and organised into manageable projects and categories (contexts). It is a personal time management tool that allows users to set and complete personal goals whether they form part of a task list or a schedule of activities. For individuals that follow the Getting Things Done methodology, the application facilitates the process of recording tasks and performing those tasks at a planned opportunity.\n\nFeatures \n\nmProductive organizes a BlackBerry user's follow-ups, tasks, meetings, appointments, events, notes and memos, plus phone calls, SMS's and emails, just by linking them together into groups that match chosen activities.\n\nDash Board \n\nThe application's ‘Dashboard View’ gives users an at-a-glance representation of their activities, and highlights what's due today, this week or in the future, plus what's overdue. Easy access to emails, SMS / MMS and call logs is provided through shortcut buttons. Action items can be recorded as tasks, events or notes within Memo Pad. Projects, groups and categories can also be managed from the Dashboard.\n\nLink related items \n\nLinking related items allows users to group like-themed meetings, appointments, tasks, memos, notes and mobile correspondence so that they stay together and are accessible from the one screen.\n\nTask list organization \n\nmProductive has an automatic organization engine that dynamically re-organizes a users list once an item has been created, deleted, amended or added to a project. Sorting and filtering options allow users to choose what they want to see, when they want to see it and how they wish to view it.\n\nAvailability \n\nmProductive is available through BlackBerry App World, MobiHand and from the vendor's website. The application can be downloaded or purchased from both the device or a desktop web browser.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n mProductive official site\n mProductive on BlackBerry App World\n mProductive on MobiHand\n mProductive on Twitter\n\nBlackBerry software"
]
|
[
"Idlewild (band)",
"Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008-2010)",
"What songs did Idlewind contribute to the post electric blues?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was the band performing during this time?",
"In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut,",
"How was the turn out?",
"I don't know.",
"Where else did they play?",
"In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.",
"What are some memorable events from when they were performing together?",
"Roddy Woomble noted that the band were \"going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs.\""
]
| C_af21f0b963dc44fcad908a703383277c_1 | Did they achieve their goal? | 6 | Did Idlewild achieve their goal of playing ever track they'd ever written - including B-sides? | Idlewild (band) | The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008. In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written - including B-sides - which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London. A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though." On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May. Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Roddy Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Idlewild are a Scottish rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1995. The band's line-up consists of Roddy Woomble (lead vocals), Rod Jones (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Newton (drums), Andrew Mitchell (bass), and Luciano Rossi (keyboards). To date, Idlewild have released nine full-length studio albums.
Initially, Idlewild's sound was faster and more dissonant than many of their 1990s indie rock contemporaries. However, it developed over time from an edgy and angular sound (as heard in their early material—once described by the NME as "the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs") to a sweeping, melodic rock sound as displayed on The Remote Part and Warnings/Promises.
In 2010, the band entered an indefinite hiatus, but reunited in late 2013 to record their seventh album, Everything Ever Written, released in 2015. This was followed by Interview Music in 2019.
History
Beginnings (1995–1996)
Idlewild, named after the quiet meeting place in Anne of Green Gables, formed in December 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a 19-year-old Roddy Woomble met drummer Colin Newton at a party. The two discovered that they had much in common, including similar musical interests and record collections. By the end of the night, they had discussed forming a band together. On the same night, the two were introduced to guitarist Rod Jones and the three kept in contact afterwards, meeting up to listen to music. Soon, the trio began writing songs together, and, in need of a bassist, they brought Phil Scanlon into the fold, due to the fact that he owned a bass guitar.
Idlewild played their first show on 16 January 1996, at the Subway Club in Edinburgh to a crowd of thirty friends, which led to many more shows around Edinburgh throughout the course of the year. In May 1996 the band, now with over twenty songs written, entered Split Level Studios to record. The tape of these recordings earned the band many bookings at various venues around Scotland, including Glasgow. Local publications that heard the tape reviewed it favourably.
Phil Scanlon decided to leave the band in February 1997 to concentrate on his studies. Since leaving Idlewild, he has become a highly successful chemical engineer and currently resides outside San Francisco. Woomble asked Bob Fairfoull to replace the departing bassist. Fairfoull had been present at every Idlewild show since the middle of 1996, and had impressed the others with his spoken-word, solo acoustic shows as well as his performances with Edinburgh band, Pussy Hoover. Fairfoull's debut with the band took place on 28 February at Glasgow bar, Nice N' Sleazy's.
Captain and Hope is Important (1997–1998)
The band's debut single "Queen of the Troubled Teens" was released on 17 March 1997, and built upon the chaotic reputation of their shows. Along with 'Self Healer', 'Satan Polaroid' and 'A Film for the Future', the song was included in a live session on Jeff Cooper's show 'XS' (now Radio2XS) on Sheffield's Hallam FM. It was also supported by BBC Radio Scotland DJ Peter Easton, and influential Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq was particularly impressed with the track "Self Healer" and asked, on the air, that if anyone knew anything about the band, they should contact him. In the summer of 1997, Idlewild played their first London shows which were attended by the likes of Lamacq, and representatives from Deceptive Records. Reviews at this time, in the pages of NME and Melody Maker compared their live gigs to "a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs". The band were soon asked to record a single for Fierce Panda and to record an EP/mini-album with Deceptive Records. In October 1997, the band spent six days with producer Paul Tipler in South London. The result was Captain, which the band describes as "an innocent, frank nugget of noise pop magic". After the release of the "Chandelier" single, the band signed a deal with Food Records/EMI in December. Following the record deal, the members quit their respective jobs or university courses.
1998 marked the year where the public became actively aware of Idlewild, who kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting the band Midget. The release of Captain, on 18 January, received positive reviews in the NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang!. In February the band re-entered the studio, again with Paul Tipler, to record their first full-length album for Food Records. Two singles were released before the album's release, "A Film for the Future" (compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by one journalist) and "Everyone Says You're So Fragile". Both singles helped to expand the band's growing fanbase alongside notable appearances at summer festivals. October marked the arrival of their debut album Hope Is Important which the band now describes as "a confused, skewered, noisy, sad pop record". Further singles from the album included, "I'm a Message" and fan favourite, "When I Argue I See Shapes". Tours supporting Ash, Placebo and Manic Street Preachers followed the release.
100 Broken Windows (1999–2001)
Idlewild eventually returned to Edinburgh in 1999 to begin writing new songs, and contacted engineer Bob Weston, from Chicago, who recorded six songs with them in London. These songs held a more aggressive, emptier sound than those previously, and the band were pleased with the results; however, they remained unsure of their direction. During the summer, Idlewild were invited to play at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a momentous day for Scottish history. Scotland is where the band would remain for a while, letting the surrounding environment influence their songwriting and letting the songs represent the band as they were. Hitting a stride, the band returned to the studio with producer Dave Eringa and recorded "Little Discourage" and "Roseability" in their first session. Very happy with the results, the band continued to record what would become their second full-length album, 100 Broken Windows. The song "Little Discourage" was released in September and brought Idlewild a larger fan-base and much more radio play. Hope Is Important was released in America, and to support it, the band performed a small number of tour dates on the East Coast. The remainder of the year was spent mixing the new album in Glasgow.
In March the following year, the band released "Actually it's Darkness" and embarked on their biggest UK tour to date. Jeremy Mills joined the band on tour, playing guitar and keyboards. Their sound had now evolved from simplistic punk-rock to a more mature sound resembling R.E.M., Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. 100 Broken Windows reached silver status in the UK and the band went on tour in Europe and North America. Further singles released from the album included "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability".
As 2001 began, the band re-entered the studio, this time with producer Stephen Street, to record songs written in the last half of 2000. While happy with the results the band put their next album aside to tour America. American music magazine Spin named 100 Broken Windows the "number one album you didn't hear in 2000" and the album received other rave reviews in the American press on its release in April. Whilst touring the album in America, Allan Stewart replaced Jeremy Mills as touring guitarist. Readers of The Skinny magazine in Scotland would retrospectively vote 100 Broken Windows 'The Scottish Album of the Decade' in December 2009.
The Remote Part (2002–2003)
Idlewild eventually moved up to the highlands of Scotland and began the writing and demoing process of what would become The Remote Part. Both Allan and Jeremy joined the band in a cottage in Inchnadamph, Sutherland. Woomble began a friendship with Scottish Makar (poet laureate) Edwin Morgan who would eventually end up on the song "Scottish Fiction," the album's closing track. The remainder of the year was spent recording and mixing the album in various locations with producer Dave Eringa. This period marked the band's longest absence from performing.
The first single from the album, "You Held the World in Your Arms", became 'A-listed' on Radio One and entered the UK Singles Chart at number nine, marking the band's biggest hit to date. A UK tour followed with Ikara Colt supporting and a second single, "American English", was released. On release, The Remote Part entered the album charts at number three, and was considered a record of considerable depth, as well as one of the most melodic records of the year. The album went gold in the UK and a third single, "Live in a Hiding Place", was released as the band embarked upon a four-month European tour in September, which included supporting dates with Coldplay.
On 30 September 2002, Idlewild took to the stage in Cologne with their guitar tech Alex Grant playing bass instead of Bob Fairfoull, with Roddy Woomble commenting during the show that Fairfoull had left the band. On 3 October, Idlewild officially announced the departure of Fairfoull due to “personal problems”. Fairfoull had become increasingly distant from the band over the past year, often being absent during the recording of The Remote Part, and his drinking habits were having a negative impact on his bass playing. Things came to a head with Fairfoull in an argument after a show in Amsterdam, with Woomble later commenting that dismissing Fairfoull “was the best thing that could have happened to the band,” and that “it meant we all finally agreed on how we were going to move forward.” The band and Fairfoull remained friends, with Fairfoull going on to play bass with Edinburgh-based band Degrassi and Paper Beats Rock.
In the immediate aftermath of Fairfoull's departure, Idlewild fulfilled their tour dates for the rest of the year with Grant on bass. On 20 November, Idlewild unveiled Gavin Fox of the Irish band Turn as their new bassist, with touring guitarist Allan Stewart also becoming a permanent member of the band. Fairfoull approved of being replaced as Idlewild bassist by his good friend Fox, though he also added, "It felt a bit like if you left your wife, and a week later she started shagging your brother. But I realised there’s no point being bitter, they’ve got to continue as a band."
2002 was Idlewild's most successful year, with The Remote Part entering many 'Best of the Year' lists. With Fox and Stewart officially in the band, Idlewild spent January of the following year writing songs and practising in an old lighthouse outside Edinburgh. A final single from The Remote Part, "A Modern Way of Letting Go", introduced the new line-up to the UK via several television appearances and another short tour of Britain and Ireland.
The Remote Part received its US release in March 2003 and the band embarked upon a cross-continent, nine-week headline tour playing their biggest US shows in New York City and Los Angeles. The band then returned to America in May at the request of Pearl Jam, who asked the band to open one leg of their Riot Act world tour. These were the biggest venues Idlewild had played in, and they found friends in Pearl Jam, even playing with them onstage on the final night in Chicago. Subsequently, in June 2007 Pearl Jam requested Idlewild to support them for a one-off date at Wembley Arena.
Warnings/Promises (2004–2005)
As 2004 began, Idlewild spent the first four months of the year writing and demoing new songs up in the Scottish Highlands, and in Roddy's flat in London. The band chose to work with American producer Tony Hoffer and flew out to Los Angeles and spent the next three months recording and mixing the new songs. This marked the first time Idlewild had recorded an album all in one go.
The band finished up the record in October 2004 in New York with mixer Michael Brauer. Roddy rented a room on the Lower East Side and stayed there for the remainder of the year, listening to the album they'd just made. 2004 became the first in the band's existence devoted almost entirely to writing and recording an album. At the end of this year they titled it Warnings/Promises.
2005 began with a series of acoustic shows around the UK. The first single from Warnings/Promises, entitled "Love Steals Us from Loneliness", appeared in February and became Idlewild's fourth Top 20 single. The album followed two weeks later and debuted within the UK Top Ten. Warnings/Promises received mainly positive reviews; however, some critics and fans disliked the band's direction with this album.
In the UK, the band embarked upon an extensive UK tour, changing the setlist every night and revisiting songs from each of their albums. In the summer, Idlewild played a number of festivals and opened shows for U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies.
In November, the band announced that they had parted ways with their record company Parlophone after fulfilling their contractual obligation over eight years, leaving them without a record deal. However, despite rumours that they were breaking up, the band claimed that they were looking forward to the future.
The year ended with a Christmas show at Barrowlands, a famed Glasgow venue and the band's "spiritual home". After this gig, Gavin Fox left the band, with Woomble citing Fox's reluctance to be in a touring rock band and eagerness to stay home in Ireland where he would write songs and sing for his own band, Curse of Cain. Fox was replaced by former Astrid bassist Gareth Russell.
Make Another World (2006–2007)
In July 2006, Roddy Woomble released an album of folk music under his own name titled My Secret is My Silence. Woomble's solo material was written alongside Rod Jones, friend Michael Angus and folksinger Karine Polwart, and produced by folk musician John McCusker. Roddy toured the album in July and August. Jones meanwhile worked on an album with Inara George called George Is Jones
The band spent many months writing new material, which was recorded with 100 Broken Windows and The Remote Part producer Dave Eringa in their rehearsal room. The album Make Another World was released on 5 March 2007 by 1960s label Sequel, which was reactivated by music group Sanctuary.. "If It Takes You Home" was the first single released from it and was available as a download and 7" single. "No Emotion" was the second single released; it went to No. 36 in the UK Top 40 chart. "A Ghost in the Arcade" was the next single, released on 18 June, though only as an internet-downloadable track and not available on physical CD.
The 19 March 2007 Aberdeen concert on the Make Another World UK Tour was filmed for a live DVD release. This was released in October 2007 as part of a special edition of a greatest hits album, Scottish Fiction - Best of 1997-2007, on former label Parlophone. A second, download-only, compilation album was also the same month. A Distant History - Rarities 1997-2007 included the band's early singles as well as many B-sides.
Post Electric Blues and hiatus (2008–2010)
The band continued to play more gigs while working on their next album. Meanwhile, Woomble started writing a column for Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald and released an album with Kris Drever and John McCusker, entitled Before the Ruin, in September 2008.
In December 2008 the band played five shows at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, playing each of their studio albums in full. Roddy Woomble noted that the band were "going to try to play every track [they'd] ever written – including B-sides – which has to be more than 100 songs." In February 2009, they announced that they would be staging a similar residency at Dingwalls in Camden, London.
A new song, "City Hall", appeared in a setlist, and the band entered the studio in January 2009. On his online diary, Roddy Woomble noted that he had: "been trying to work on lyrics for the new Idlewild record. At the moment it has the possibility of being about anything, so I've been trying to narrow that down a bit. I've been re-reading Jack Kerouac's novels and following this US election, and keeping up with all the new US groups, so maybe it'll take on a Stars and stripes theme. It'll probably end up being about mountains and Islands though."
On 21 November the band sent an email to fans on the mailing list offering them a chance to preorder the new album (along with "exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track") to be "shipped within weeks of completion". All fans who bought the album this way would also have their name appear in the CD booklet and on a roll call on the band's official website. On 9 May 2009, Roddy confirmed in his online diary that the new album would be entitled Post Electric Blues. The album was performed in full on 19 May.
Initial emails indicated a release date to fans who had pre-ordered the album of mid-April, but the album was eventually mailed out on 10 June 2009. Fans who pre-ordered the album were also allowed to download their choice of live tracks that the band had recorded at the King Tut's series of shows. The album was officially released in October, preceded by the single "Readers & Writers". In April 2010, Woomble announced that the band would enter a hiatus following the band's tour in support of Post Electric Blues. However this comment only referred to the writing and recording of new material as Woomble later suggested. Idlewild announced their first American tour since 2005 and a short UK tour in support of the EMI re-release of 100 Broken Windows. During the UK shows (as well as a New York and Los Angeles show) the album was to be played in its entirety. However, due to an injury to Rod Jones, the American dates were cancelled. The 100 Broken Windows reissue was released on 8 November 2010 and featured a second disc of B-Sides and unreleased material.
Renewed activity (2013–present)
An end to the band's hiatus was made public in September 2013, by which point Gareth Russell and Allan Stewart had left to be replaced by multi-instrumentalist Luciano Rossi. The band started recording a new album in January 2014. Seventh studio album, Everything Ever Written, was released in February 2015. In addition to Woomble, Jones and Newton, the album also included contributions from new members Rossi and bassist Andrew Mitchell of The Hazey Janes.
Idlewild marked the 15th anniversary of The Remote Part by playing the album in full at two Christmas 2017 shows at the ABC in Glasgow, which sold out within a day, and KOKO in London. The second Glasgow show was notable for surprise guest appearances by former Idlewild members Allan Stewart and Bob Fairfoull.The band then spent 2018 working on a new album, and playing another The Remote Part anniversary show in Edinburgh with Fairfoull once again appearing as a special guest. The resultant album, Interview Music, was released on 5 April 2019, and Allan Stewart rejoined on second guitar for the live shows.
In March 2020, Idlewild announced a November tour of UK and Ireland to mark the band's 25th anniversary but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the dates were rescheduled for November 2021. In February 2021 a retrospective book written by Woomble, In the Beginning There Were Answers: 25 Years of Idlewild, was published.
Solo work
Jones released his debut solo album, A Sentimental Education, in 2009. In 2010, Jones founded The Fruit Tree Foundation, alongside Emma Pollock (The Delgados), in order to raise awareness of mental health problems. Jones released his second solo album, A Generation Innocence, in August 2012; however, while writing for the second album, Jones encountered a hurdle at the halfway mark, as he discovered that he was not satisfied with any of the material that he had written thus far. In 2011, Jones explained, "I was a bit fed up with the whole folk music thing – I mean every man and his dog was doing the faux folk thing"—Jones then proceeded to learn the drums and eventually formed the band, The Birthday Suit, to record the material that he had created in the period following the drumming diversion.
In late 2011, Jones formed The Birthday Suit and described the band as "essentially a solo project ... It's an ever-changing bistro of musicians." The band released its debut album, The Eleventh Hour, in October 2011. The Birthday Suit's second studio album, A Conversation Well Rehearsed was released on 3 December 2012. The album was listed in 19th place in the Clean Slate Music website's "Top 21 Albums of 2012" list, although the website wrote that the second album "doesn't carry the punch" of the band's debut album.
In 2006, Woomble worked with several musicians including Kate Rusby, his wife Ailidh Lennon, songwriter Karine Polwart (to whom he presented the Horizon Award at the BBC Folk Awards 2005, and with whom he performed at Celtic Connections) and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones on his debut solo album My Secret is My Silence, produced by John McCusker. The album was released in July 2006, and Woomble toured the United Kingdom in support of the album's release. My Secret is my Silence reached number one in the UK Folk Charts, and a year later, on 10 July 2007, My Secret is my Silence was released in the United States on 7–10 Music. Woomble's follow-up album, Before the Ruin, written and recorded with Kris Drever and John McCusker, was released on 15 September 2008 through Navigator Records. In March 2011, Woomble released his second solo album, The Impossible Song & Other Songs.
Members
Current members
Roddy Woomble – lead vocals (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Rod Jones – guitar, backing vocals, keyboards (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Colin Newton – drums (1995–2010, 2013–present)
Andrew Mitchell – bass, guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)
Luciano "Lucci" Rossi – keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Hannah Fisher – fiddle (2013–present)
Allan Stewart – guitar (2001–2002, 2019–present; official member 2003–2010)
Former members
Phil Scanlon – bass (1995–1997)
Bob Fairfoull – bass (1997–2002)
Gavin Fox – bass (2003–2005)
Gareth Russell – bass (2006–2010)
Former touring musicians
Jeremy Mills – guitar (1999–2001)
Alex Grant – bass (2002)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Captain (1998)
Hope Is Important (1998)
100 Broken Windows (2000)
The Remote Part (2002)
Warnings/Promises (2005)
Make Another World (2007)
Post Electric Blues (2009)
Everything Ever Written (2015)
Interview Music (2019)
See also
Scottish music (2000–2010)
Edinburgh culture
Scottish literature
Music of Scotland
References
External links
Musical groups established in 1995
Scottish indie rock groups
1995 establishments in Scotland
Musical groups from Edinburgh
Capitol Records artists
Parlophone artists
Musical quintets
Post-Britpop groups
Sanctuary Records artists | false | [
"In sociology, a group action is a situation in which a number of agents take action simultaneously in order to achieve a common goal; their actions are usually coordinated.\n\nGroup action will often take place when social agents realize they are more likely to achieve their goal when acting together rather than individually. Group action differs from group behaviours, which are uncoordinated, and also from mass actions, which are more limited in place.\n\nGroup action is more likely to occur when the individuals within the group feel a sense of unity with the group, even in personally costly actions.\n\nSee also \n\nAffectional action\nCollective action\nCollective effervescence\nInstrumental and value-rational action\nInterpersonal relationship\nPolitical movement\nSocial movement\nSocial relation\nSocionics\nTraditional action\n\nReferences\n\nAction (sociology)\nSociological terminology",
"Second-tier sourcing is a procurement policy used by many Fortune 500 corporations. Second-tier sourcing is a practice of rewarding those suppliers that achieve or attempt to achieve the minority-owned business (MBE) spending goals of their customer.\n\nThe program was started by Chrysler Corporation in 1993 and now extends throughout the Fortune 500. In 2005, Toyota set a goal of 10% for their suppliers and holds an annual matchmaking event to help their suppliers achieve those goals.\n\nProcurement"
]
|
[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style"
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | When did the Animal Style art develop? | 1 | When did the Animal Style art develop? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | true | [
"Animal style art is an approach to decoration found from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period, characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The zoomorphic style of decoration was used to decorate small objects by warrior-herdsmen, whose economy was based on breeding and herding animals, supplemented by trade and plunder. Animal art is a more general term for all art depicting animals.\n\nEastern styles\n\nScythian art makes great use of animal motifs, one component of the \"Scythian triad\" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild animal art. The cultures referred to as Scythian-style included the Cimmerian and Sarmatian cultures in European Sarmatia and stretched across the Eurasian steppe north of the Near East to the Ordos culture of China. These cultures were extremely influential in spreading many local versions of the style.\n\nSteppe jewellery features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles bunched tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The \"looped\" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period. The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include the examples from:\nthe Arzhan kurgan, Tuva, Siberia, with animal style artifacts (8-7th century BC).\nthe burial site of Kostromskaya in the Kuban dating from the 6th century BC (Hermitage)\nTápiószentmárton in Hungary dating from the 5th century BC, now National Museum of Hungary, Budapest\nKul Oba in the Crimea dating from the 4th century BC (Hermitage).\n\nAnother characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.\n\nAlthough gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armour.\n\nThe use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess and powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.\n\nA distinct Permian style of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the Ural mountains and the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia.\n\nGermanic animal style\nThe study of Germanic zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the \"barbarian\" peoples during the Migration Period.\n\nStyle I. First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.\n\nStyle II. After about 560–570 Style I, declining, began to be supplanted. The animals of Style II are whole beasts, their bodies elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism—rarely with legs—tending to be described as serpents, though heads often have characteristics of other animals. The animals become subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically interlace. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid (picture) from Sutton Hoo (c. 625).\n\nEventually about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel. Animals' bodies become hard for the unpractised viewer to read, and there is a very common motif of the \"gripping beast\" where an animal's mouth grips onto another element of the composition to connect two parts. Animal style was one component, along with Celtic art and late classical elements, in the formation of style of Insular art and Anglo-Saxon art in the British Isles, and through these routes and others on the Continent, left a considerable legacy in later Medieval art.\n\nOther names are sometimes used: in Anglo-Saxon art Kendrick preferred \"Helmet\" and \"Ribbon\" for Styles I and II.\n\nSee also\n Migration Period art\n Thracian art\n Persian-Sassanid art patterns\n Confronted-animals\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Perm Animal Style: Photo gallery (Virtual museum)\n Perm Animal Style\nNomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on and examples of animal style\nAndreeva, Petya, \"Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art\", University of Pennsylvania, 2018: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2963/\nSalin Styles in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology\n\nVisual arts genres\nArchaeology of Central Asia\nArchaeology of Siberia\nMedieval art\nIron Age art of Europe\nIndo-European art\nEarly Germanic art\nAnimals in art",
"Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and geometric designs, often interlaced and intricately carved into small panels. Famous examples include the Pentney Hoard, the Abingdon sword, the Fuller brooch, and the Strickland brooch.\n\nHistory \n\nTrewhiddle style is named after the Trewhiddle Hoard found in 1774 near Trewhiddle, Cornwall. The treasure contained a number of objects, including Anglo-Saxon coins, a silver chalice, and other gold and silver pieces. The artefacts can be dated to the ninth century. The animal ornamentation of some of the Trewhiddle Hoard items became a focus of study by Anglo-Saxon art historians and archaeologists in the early twentieth century. Sir Thomas Kendrick was the first historian to illustrate the uninterrupted use of Anglo-Saxon animal ornament, from the last days of Roman Britain to the early Anglo-Saxon period. Danish archaeologist, Johannes Brøndsted, acknowledged the historical importance of the lively decorative elements of the hoard by naming the ninth century style, the \"Trewhiddle style\".\n\nTrewhiddle style is most likely the outcome of evolving Anglo-Saxon art forms. The Animal style decoration and complex patterns that were found in early England, continued to develop over time. According to David M. Wilson, \"If we look at the animal ornament on the metalwork of any period between 450 and 950, we can see the same traditions at work. The animal on the Faversham brooch, the animal on the Sutton Hoo clasps, and the animal on the horse trappings of Källby are in a sequence that leads up to Trewhiddle and beyond.\"\n\nArt historians have recognized important similarities between Trewhiddle art and Irish art, yet no historian has proposed that Trewhiddle art was influenced by Irish art. It is most likely that the animal art of the Trewhiddle objects originated in England and to a small degree was influenced by Continental art from the Mediterranean, Francia, or Celtic world.\n\nEarlier scholars have theorized that the Trewhiddle style was confined to the ninth century. The style has been difficult to date given the lack of independent dating evidence associated with Trewhiddle finds. It has been suggested, as more Trewhiddle artefacts continue to be found, that the birth of the Trehiddle style may have occurred in the eighth century. It has also been suggested, given more recent excavation of Trewhiddle style artefacts, including those found at Anglo-Saxon sites in Yorkshire in the 1980s and the late 1990s, that the Trewhiddle style continued to be produced in Northern England into the tenth century. Until more information becomes available to Trewhiddle scholars, the style continues to be dated to the ninth century.\n\nStyle features \nThe Trewhiddle style is recognized for its intricately carved decoration, including animal, plant, interlace and geometric patterns; niello inlays, densely decorated surfaces, and dome-headed rivets. A defining feature is the dividing of the main area of decoration into small panels, typically separated by beaded borders. Panels usually contain a single motif, typically a crouching, backward-looking or biting animal. Speckling of individual motifs was a technique frequently used to create surface texture or movement.\n\nThe animal forms are many, including variations of mythical birds, snakes and beasts, usually depicted in profile. Plant motifs vary from intricately carved individual leaves to complete plants, often combined with animal forms and interlace. Interlace is more commonly seen combined with zoomorphic and plant motifs, rather than on its own. When used singly, the interlace pattern is typically simple and closed. When used with plant or animal forms, the decoration is generally a more complex design.\n\nMetalwork \nTrewhiddle style was primarily used to decorate metalwork. During the late Anglo-Saxon era, silver was the precious metal most commonly used to create Trewhiddle style jewellery and to decorate weapons. Viking trade and expansion during the ninth and tenth centuries brought new supplies of silver from the Near East to England and Scandinavia. The rapid change from the use of gold to silver in metalwork manufacturing, was due to abundant new supplies of silver that were made available to craftsmen during this time period. Subsequently, gold became the preferred metal to manufacture finger-rings or for gilding and inlay.\n\nWeapons \n \nTrewhiddle was a commonly used decoration style for late Anglo-Saxon swords. The Abingdon sword, found near the village of Abingdon and now in the Ashmolean Museum, is decorated with silver mounts inlaid with niello. The River Witham sword, has a silver Trewhiddle style hilt is decorated with animal motifs, inlaid with niello. \n\nThe sword pommel from the Bedale Hoard, is engraved with panels of gold foil inlay, and decorated with carved, intertwined animals and an intricate gold leaf pattern. The Anglo-Saxon weapon can be dated to the late ninth or early tenth century.\n\nThree sword hilts, all from the Norwegian areas of Høven, Dolven and Gronneberg, were manufactured in the Trewhiddle style, all composed of niello inlays. The Dolven and Gronnenberg hilts are decorated in a similar manner to the River Witham sword. The Høven hilt is decorated with intertwined bird and animal forms, similar in style to the Fuller Brooch.\n\nJewellery \n \n\nAnglo-Saxon jewellery during the ninth and early tenth century is renowned for its superb craftsmanship and animated, intricately carved designs. Typically cast in silver, open-work disc brooches decorated in the Trewhiddle style are the most recognized examples of late Anglo-Saxon jewellery style.\n\nThe Pentney Hoard is probably the best known example of Trewhiddle style. The Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered in a Pentney, Norfolk churchyard in 1978. The six silver open-work disc brooches, date to the early 9th century, and include two non-identical brooch pairs and two singleton brooches.\n\nThe Æthelwulf\nand Æthelswith finger-rings are important examples of Trewhiddle style gold metalwork. The rings belonged to Æthelwulf, King of Wessex and his daughter, Æthelswith (838-888 AD). Æthelwulf was the father of Alfred the Great. His rule spanned the years between 836 and 858 AD. Ethelswith reigned as Queen of Mercia from 853 to 874, when her husband King Burgred of Mercia died. The rings are significant in that they both contain unusual images of Christian iconography: the Lamb of God is featured on Æthelswith's ring and two peacocks drinking at the Fountain of Life are the central image on Æthelwulf's ring.\n\nThe Fuller Brooch, an intricately carved silver and niello inlay brooch, is dated to the late 9th century. The circular brooch illustrates the embodiment of the Five Senses. Belonging to the late Trewhiddle style, and featuring Trewhiddle style animals, birds, plants and humans, the Anglo-Saxon brooch is rare for its use of anthropomorphic motifs. It is considered one of the most famous examples of Anglo-Saxon art.\n\nThe Strickland Brooch, a mid-ninth century silver and niello inlay disc brooch is similar in design to the Fuller Brooch. Both pieces of jewellery are made from sheet silver and inlaid with niello and gold. The Strickland Brooch's lively open-work design is elaborately carved with collared dog-like beasts and animal heads.\n\nStrap-ends\nLate Anglo-Saxon era strap-ends, accessories used to fasten to the end of a strap or belt to keep it from unraveling, were often decorated in the Trewhiddle style. The eight strap-ends of the Poppleton hoard, discovered near Upper Poppleton, Yorkshire, and dating from the late 9th to early 10th century, are excellent examples of Trewhiddle style metalwork.\n\nSee also\n\n Insular art\n Migration period art\n Celtic art\n Viking art\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n\nAnglo-Saxon art\nEnglish art\nMedieval art\n9th century in England"
]
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[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III."
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other? | 2 | What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | true | [
"Animal style art is an approach to decoration found from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period, characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The zoomorphic style of decoration was used to decorate small objects by warrior-herdsmen, whose economy was based on breeding and herding animals, supplemented by trade and plunder. Animal art is a more general term for all art depicting animals.\n\nEastern styles\n\nScythian art makes great use of animal motifs, one component of the \"Scythian triad\" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild animal art. The cultures referred to as Scythian-style included the Cimmerian and Sarmatian cultures in European Sarmatia and stretched across the Eurasian steppe north of the Near East to the Ordos culture of China. These cultures were extremely influential in spreading many local versions of the style.\n\nSteppe jewellery features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles bunched tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The \"looped\" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period. The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include the examples from:\nthe Arzhan kurgan, Tuva, Siberia, with animal style artifacts (8-7th century BC).\nthe burial site of Kostromskaya in the Kuban dating from the 6th century BC (Hermitage)\nTápiószentmárton in Hungary dating from the 5th century BC, now National Museum of Hungary, Budapest\nKul Oba in the Crimea dating from the 4th century BC (Hermitage).\n\nAnother characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.\n\nAlthough gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armour.\n\nThe use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess and powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.\n\nA distinct Permian style of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the Ural mountains and the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia.\n\nGermanic animal style\nThe study of Germanic zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the \"barbarian\" peoples during the Migration Period.\n\nStyle I. First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.\n\nStyle II. After about 560–570 Style I, declining, began to be supplanted. The animals of Style II are whole beasts, their bodies elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism—rarely with legs—tending to be described as serpents, though heads often have characteristics of other animals. The animals become subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically interlace. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid (picture) from Sutton Hoo (c. 625).\n\nEventually about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel. Animals' bodies become hard for the unpractised viewer to read, and there is a very common motif of the \"gripping beast\" where an animal's mouth grips onto another element of the composition to connect two parts. Animal style was one component, along with Celtic art and late classical elements, in the formation of style of Insular art and Anglo-Saxon art in the British Isles, and through these routes and others on the Continent, left a considerable legacy in later Medieval art.\n\nOther names are sometimes used: in Anglo-Saxon art Kendrick preferred \"Helmet\" and \"Ribbon\" for Styles I and II.\n\nSee also\n Migration Period art\n Thracian art\n Persian-Sassanid art patterns\n Confronted-animals\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Perm Animal Style: Photo gallery (Virtual museum)\n Perm Animal Style\nNomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on and examples of animal style\nAndreeva, Petya, \"Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art\", University of Pennsylvania, 2018: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2963/\nSalin Styles in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology\n\nVisual arts genres\nArchaeology of Central Asia\nArchaeology of Siberia\nMedieval art\nIron Age art of Europe\nIndo-European art\nEarly Germanic art\nAnimals in art",
"Yin Style Baguazhang is a style of Baguazhang.\n\nHistory\nYin Fu had multiple students, but is said to have taught his complete baguazhang system to only a few. Of these students, Men Baozhen (門寶珍) taught Xie Peiqi. In an interview with Xie Peiqi, dated to 1999, Xie stated that his teacher, Men Baozhen, was considered to be the third best pupil of Yin Fu, after \"Wan Tong\" Li (i.e. Li Yongqing) and Ma Gui (Yin's oldest disciple). Dr. Xie died in 2003 and his top student, He Jinbao, is now teaching the system. Other famous students of Yin Fu included Yin Yuzhang (his fourth son), Cao Zhongsheng (who also learned from Ma Gui), Gong Baotian, and others. Ma Gui, Yin Fu's first disciple, stated that he changed nothing in the bagua he learned from Yin Fu. Included among Ma Gui's students were Wang Peisheng, who is more famous for his Wu style taijiquan, and Liu Wanchuan.\n\nOverview\nYin Style as passed down by Xie Peiqi is notable for having eight distinct animal styles within the body of the art. In other words, Xie's Yin Style is a complete system, which is made up of other complete systems. These include the eight animal systems as well as several 'unorthodox' systems, such as the Penetrating Palm and Backhand systems. Each of the eight animal styles is related to one of the eight trigrams of the I Ching. The following table describes this relationship:\n\nEach animal is a complete system in its own right, possessing its own personality, skills, applications, and functions. Each of the eight animal systems contains eight striking methods, and each striking method has seven strikes. Three of those seven are considered the 'primary' strikes and are emphasized more than the others in single practice. Therefore, the animal systems of Xie's Yin Style Bagua have a total of 448 unique strikes. However, Xie's Yin Style Bagua also contains other unorthodox systems outside of the eight animals, such as Penetrating Palm and the Backhand systems. Hence, there are more than 448 strikes, though 448 are contained within the animals. (Note that the animal relationships with the bagua diagram are not unique to Xie's art; these relationships are also often used for other styles of bagua, including Cheng substyles, such as that of Sun Lutang.)\n\nOther substyles of Yin include different forms and methods. For example, Cao Zhongsheng's system's technical base is the 64 palms (also taught by Wang Peisheng); other substyles focus on only 8 main palms (such as that of Liu Zhenlin, Li Baosen, or other Men Baozhen lineages). Gong Baotian's version has many forms and a strong emphasis on Yin Fu's Luohan forms. Each substyle also includes many supplementary forms (such as luohanquan) and training methods (such as hand hardening methods).\n\nFour Basic Practices\nThere are four basic practice methods in Xie Peiqi's Yin Style Baguazhang: standing, turning, striking, and changing. These practices are the basic pillars of the style, and are all considered equally important.\n\nStanding\nThe standing practices involve nine static strengthening postures specific to a given animal. Each posture requires precise body alignment and distinct isometric pressures necessitating full body exertion to maintain properly. These postures are undertaken to develop and check the structure of every part of the body.\n\nTurning\nTurning (or turning the circle), is the practice many people associate with Baguazhang. \"Yin style Bagua is the art of striking while you are moving. You ceaselessly move and strike, and are always trying to get to the outside [of your opponent] by turning. No matter what, position yourself to avoid the heavy blows and let the light ones fall. It is within turning that these movements and techniques are honed to perfection or to a higher level. All movements and techniques are linked smoothly together.\"\n\nStriking\nStriking is the most fundamental way of developing power in Yin Style Baguazhang. It is introduced through the stationary drilling method, unaccompanied by footwork. It is intended to establish the harmony between hand and waist that is necessary for generating power.\n\nThe moving strike practices consist of:\n\n One-step drilling method, of which there is the zig-zag stepping or dominating the side, straight stepping, or dominating the center, and closing or turning the back method.\n Two-step, or square drilling, which consists of advance-back-step, advance-advance, or back-step-advance, and back-step back-step.\n Three-step, or horizontal drilling method, which combines the stationary strike, advance step, and back-step.\n\nChanging\nChanging is most obvious when changing hands to face opposite directions. Changing also includes the changing or redirecting of force, or alterations in stepping.\n\nAnimal Styles in Xie Peiqi's Yin Style\n\nCommonalities Between the Animal Styles\nEach animal style in Yin Style Baguazhang is its own complete system; however, each system contains practices and movements from all of the other animal systems. Example: when practicing forms in Yin Style Bagua, a practitioner may practice, for example, the Lion System Windmill Sweeping Strike Form. The strikes come from the lion system, but the Windmill movements come from the Phoenix system.\n\nThus, each animal has a specific movement technique in addition to its 8 striking methods. Each animal also has its own kicking technique, which is not included in its striking methods.\n\nQian Trigram Lion System\nThe lion is pure Yang energy, or hardness, and is one of two animals represented by a pure trigram; the other is the Unicorn. The lion trigram is characterized by powerful and ferocious full-body force generated from the waist. The lion's eight striking methods are: sweeping, cutting, chopping, hooking, shocking, blocking, seizing and grasping.\n\nThe lion's characteristic movement technique is Linking the Forms.\n\nKan Trigram Snake System\n\nThe Snake's striking methods are: shoulder, elbow, knee, hip, shooting, binding, entrapping, and grasping. The style is characterized by a smooth and flowing motion of the force-palm, with many of the strikes targeted at vital organs.\n\nThe snake's characteristic movement technique is Moving with the Force.\n\nGen Trigram Bear System\n\nThe bear system is distinguished by a strategy of taking advantage from a losing position. The Bear's striking methods are: rushing, penetrating, withdrawing, carrying, leaning, shocking, soft and following. The Bear's power is generated from the back, and is short and blunt.\n\nThe bear's characteristic movement technique is Turning the Back.\n\nZhèn Trigram Dragon System\n\nKnown as the lifting and holding palm. Its striking methods are: pushing, lifting, carrying, leading, moving, capturing, chopping and entering. The Dragon's power is emitted through a forward motion of back and waist. The Dragon style, although practiced differently in Yin Style, is the animal practiced by Cheng Style Baguazhang.\n\nThe dragon's characteristic movement technique is Lifting and Upholding.\n\nXun Trigram Phoenix System\n\nIn the phoenix system, force is emitted from the shoulders, and characterized by whipping action. The striking methods are: dodging, extending, chopping, shocking, transforming, removing, curling in, and cutting.\n\nThe phoenix's characteristic movement technique is Windmill.\n\nLi Trigram Rooster System\n\nThe rooster focuses on long, deep footwork with one's center of gravity close to the ground. Power comes from the elbows. The Rooster's striking methods are: dodging, extending, lifting, shifting, entering, whipping, rushing and stabbing.\n\nThe rooster's characteristic movement technique is Reclining Step (also known as Lying Step).\n\nKun Trigram Qilin/Unicorn System\n\nThe Unicorn is the opposite of the Lion, being pure Yin. The Unicorn's striking methods are: sticking, kneading, soft, following, hip, striking, chopping and cutting. It issues force by employing all joints to produce a flexible, snapping power.\n\nThe unicorn's characteristic movement technique is Reversing the Body.\n\nDui Trigram Monkey System\n\nConcentrates on leg techniques, referred to as the interlocking leg. Its striking methods are: bending, thrusting, straightening, hip, chopping, swinging, stopping, and ending.\n\nThe monkey's characteristic movement technique is Compacting the Body.\n\nDistribution\n\nYin stylists are most concentrated in Beijing, where practitioners of the lineages of Ma Gui, Yin Yuzhang, Cao Zhongsheng, Li Baosen, Li Yongqing, Men Baozhen, and others still practice and teach today. Certain Yin styles have moved to other locations as well, however, such as the Cui Zhendong lineage in Shanghai and the Gong Baotian lineage in Shanghai, Shandong, and Taiwan. Famous practitioners in Beijing today include Zhang Zhao Ren, He Puren, Wang Shangzhi, Xu Shixi, Zhang Lie, Zhu Baozhen, and He Jinbao. Others include Huang Zhicheng of Shandong, He Jinghan of Taiwan, Michael Guen of California and Tu Kun-Yii of New Jersey, USA.\n\nReferences\n\nBaguazhang styles\nChinese martial arts\nNeijia\nI Ching"
]
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[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III.",
"What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other?",
"Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century."
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | What was unique about Style II? | 3 | What was unique about Style II? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | false | [
"Vertumnus is an oil painting produced by Giuseppe Arcimboldo in 1591 that consists of multiple fruits, vegetables and flowers that come together to create a portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Although Arcimboldo's colleagues commented that Vertumnus was scherzo, or humorous, there were intentional political meanings behind the piece, particularly regarding the choice of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Arcimboldo's choice to include these items was also an intentional reference to the Roman god, Vertumnus.\n\nVertumnus was presented to Rudolf II after its completion. Its ownership shifted to the Swedish army after the Thirty Years' War. Although art historians lost track of Vertumnus after this shift, it reappeared in 1845 in Sweden in Skokloster Castle, where it is currently located.\n\nHistorical context\n\nHoly Roman Emperor Rudolf II \nDuring Rudolf II's twenty-nine year rule in Hungary and Bohemia, art was celebrated and praised. His time as Holy Roman Emperor, now named \"Rudolfine Prague\", set an unprecedented era for the appreciation of art, with much of this cultivation pushed by Rudolf II himself. This acceptance of art is what allowed Arcimboldo to thrive in his court, especially with the unprecedented, unique style Arcimboldo came to be known for.\n\nThe initial impression of Arcimboldo's Vertumnus was that it was joke due to the whimsical nature of the piece. However, Vertumnus was not meant to be presented only as a joke. Rather, the use of fruits and vegetables were meant to display Rudolf II's \"metamorphoses of power over the world for a ruler\". The imperial patron behind Vertumnus, the specific fruit choices that act as power propaganda, and the copies of Vertumnus that were distributed throughout Europe, \"all suggest their role as political allegories\".\n\nRudolf II's portrait itself encapsulated the perfect balance and harmony with nature, arts, and science, all of which Rudolf II believed he represented during his reign. These portraits were an expression of the Renaissance mind's fascination with riddles, puzzles, and the bizarre. The search for unique, fascinating pieces of art was a common trend among Renaissance elites which lent Arcimboldo the perfect opportunity to fascinate viewers with his distinctive style. Although Arcimboldo's traditional religious subjects were later forgotten, his portraits of human heads composed of objects were greatly admired by his contemporaries.\n\nStyle\n\nTheme \nGiuseppe Arcimboldo was well known for his unique combination of flora, fruits and other various objects in his paintings. Vertumnus has become one of Arcimboldo's most popular paintings that he produced, and this particular art style was encouraged while he was employed in Rudolf II's court. Arcimboldo created a series of works that utilized these still life images such as the Four Seasons, Four Elements, and The Librarian. Ultimately, Arcimboldo would create Vertumnus which drew on much of his experience in the royal court.\n\nMannerism \nDuring Arcimboldo's time in Rudolf II's court, he was able to refine his unique style that would lead many to later regard Arcimboldo's approach as \"typical...of mannerism.\" Mannerism is a particular art style that lasted from the 1530s to the 1600s. Mannerist artists focused on greatly displaying their technique, their exaggeration of figures, and decorative elements resulting in extremely stylized and hyperbolic pieces. Contemporarily, Arcimboldo is thought of as one of the first pioneers of the Mannerist art style especially due to his unique use of still life images.\n\nFruits, vegetables & flowers \nThe portrait of the emperor is created out of plants, flowers and fruits from all seasons: gourds, pears, apples, cherries, grapes, wheat, artichokes, beans, peas, corns, onions, cabbage foils, chestnuts, figs, mulberries, plums, pomegranates, various pumpkins and olives.\n\nArcimboldo's choice of fruits, vegetables and flowers not only alluded to Emperor Rudolf II's reign, but also referenced his power and wealth. During the Renaissance, collections of oddities and foreign luxury goods were status symbols for the rich. Great families of the Renaissance such as the Medici collected flora, foods, animals (both living and dead) and other materialistic objects to display their wealth and reach (as many people in those days could not afford such luxuries) and thus, goods from the New World began to trickle into the kunstkammer or wunderkammer of many elites. Arcimboldo's use of corn as Emperor Rudolf II's ear (a crop originating from the New World) thus can be seen as a pointedly political decision. By putting in these particular foreign crops, Rudolf II is revealing that he has access to these items showcasing his power and wealth.\n\nInterpretations \nThe political interpretation of Vertumnus revolves around Rudolf II's rule. In the interpretation, Vertumnus acts as a statement claiming that the known world was claimed under Rudolf II and reveals his intention to defeat the Turks, not for the sake of Christianity but rather for the sake of global power and the everlasting Habsburg dynasty. Politically, Vertumnus has also been interpreted to reveal that Rudolf II's power as the Holy Roman Emperor did not only apply to his subjects and kingdom, but to nature itself (again referencing back to the god Vertumnus). There is also a poetic interpretation that was derived from Arcimboldo's piece. When Arcimboldo compared Rudolf II to Vertumnus, the emperor took on Vertumnus as a representation of himself. While Vertumnus could change his form at will, Rudolf II was known to change his moods at will, too. In Roman mythology, Vertumnus is the god of changing seasons, gardens, fruit trees, and plant growth. These aspects of Vertumnus indicate an \"underlying permanence\" to the god which in turn reflects back onto Rudolf II's rule. Furthermore, this particular god was present during the birth of Rome which acts as another allusion to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II.\n\nProvenance \nVertumnus was commissioned by Rudolf II during Arcimboldo's employment at his court and was presented to the emperor in 1591. After the Thirty Years' War, the portrait's ownership was seized by the Swedish army. Presently, the exact date of when Vertumnus became part of the Skokloster castle's collection is unknown. It is known that the Swedish Queen Christina was able to obtain Vertumnus. It is rumored that Vertumnus was a gift from the Queen Christina to Karl Gustav Wrangel—proprietor of Skokloster. However, when asked how Vertumnus ended up at Skolkloster Castle or why Vertumnus could not be identified at Skokloster Castle before 1845, Bengt Kylsberg, a curator at Skokloster Castle, stated that, \"That mystery remains to be solved!\".\n\nIn 1988, it was determined that a conservation effort was needed to restore Vertumnus from its poor condition. Arcimboldo's techniques and the medium he used were carefully observed and a preservation technique using krill enzymes (isolated from Antarctic krill) was applied to Vertumnus. Vertumnus now rests in the Skokloster Castle as part of its art collection.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nPaintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo\n1590s paintings\nCultural depictions of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor\nFood and drink paintings\nPaintings in Sweden",
"Unique II (previously Unique 2) is a Eurodance project from Austria. They are best known for their 1996 dance cover of Matthew Wilder's \"Break My Stride\", which reached No. 1 in Austria and New Zealand, and No. 2 in Australia.\n\nHistory\nUnique II was founded in 1992 by Austrian music producers Erwin Geppner and Werner Freistätter. Together with singer Sandy Cooper and rapper Def Tone they developed the first single, \"Iko Iko\", which reached No. 8 in Austria. Their debut album Internity reached No. 25 in Austria. A short time later, Sandy Cooper and Def Tone left the group and were replaced by singer Jade Davis and rapper B-Nice. In 1996, Unique II produced their version of Matthew Wilder's classic \"Break My Stride\". This became the group's biggest success, reaching number 1 in Austria and New Zealand, and No. 2 in Australia. Later that year they released their second album Level II, which reached No. 17 in Austria. Other hits from this album included \"Loveline\", \"Do What You Please\" and \"I Still Go On\", which peaked at No. 2, No. 6 and No. 12, respectively, in Austria. In the late 1990s, Jade Davies left Unique II to begin a solo career. She was replaced by Dutch singer Phoebe Caren. In 1997, B-Nice left the group for a solo career. The group went on a hiatus until 2000 when they released the album Forever, which reached No. 28 in Austria and the eponymous single featuring Filipino singer Sheila Fernandez, which reached No. 8. In the early 2000s, English-born rapper Christian Troy joined the group, and Sheila Fernandez became the new singer. In 2003, they released a Best Of album, featuring remixes of \"Break My Stride\" and \"Loveline\". Unique II has become the most successful dance-pop band in Austria, and have received numerous awards, both nationally and worldwide.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nInternity (1993)\nLevel II (1996)\nForever – The Album (2000)\nBest of Unique II – The Golden Experience (2002)\n\nSingles\n\"Iko Iko\" (1992)\n\"Loveline\" (1993)\n\"Free\" (1995)\n\"Break My Stride\" (1996)\n\"Do What You Please\" (1996)\n\"Dance All Night\" (1997)\n\"I Still Go On\" (1997)\n\"Forever\" (featuring Sheila Fernandez) (2000)\n\"The Way I Need to Go\" (2000)\n\"Take Me Higher\" (2001)\n\"Break My Stride\" (Remix) (2002)\n\nReferences\n\nLinks\n Unique II on Discogs\n\nAustrian Eurodance groups\nMusical groups established in 1992"
]
|
[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III.",
"What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other?",
"Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century.",
"What was unique about Style II?",
"Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs,"
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | What was Style III art like? | 4 | What was Style III art like? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | true | [
"was a Japanese printmaker and mountain climber. He was known for his prints of mountains and people who live in them.\n\nBiography \nAzechi was born on December 28, 1902 to a poor farming family in what is now Uwajima, Ehime. He enrolled in an art correspondence course where he would send his work to Tokyo for critique. In 1920 he had the opportunity to move there, but returned home to Shikoku after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. He moved back to Tokyo in 1925, where he worked for a printing company. \n\nAzechi's prints were noticed by Unichi Hiratsuka, who took him under his wing. He belonged to the Japan Print Association and the Kokugakai Arts Association. After his works were shown in some of their exhibitions, he quit his job and became a freelance artist. During this time, he was heavily influenced by and Kōshirō Onchi.\n\nDuring World War II, Azechi was sent to Manchuria. When he returned to Japan, he also immediately returned to making art.\n\nAzechi's work was shown at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1953. It was also shown at the Lugano International Print Biennial in 1956.\n\nAzechi died on April 12, 1999. The Umetaro Azechi memorial museum opened in Uwajima in 2003.\n\nStyle \nHis early work was reflective of the monochrome sosaku hanga style. He began to develop his own style in the late 1930s.\n\nAzechi became known for his paintings of mountains and the people who live there. He became a regular mountain climber, and became well-known for his writing on the topic. His art style was primitive, but intentionally so in the same way as the naive artists. He used the same striped patterns on both people and animals, showing the similarities between the two. Because he did so many landscapes and art depicting the natural world, he used mostly cool colors like blues, greens, and purples.\n\nMuseums that hold Azechi's works include the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the British Museum.\n\nReferences \n\n1902 births\n1999 deaths\nJapanese printmakers\n\nPeople from Uwajima, Ehime\nJapanese mountain climbers",
"Chi-Chien Wang (; 1907 – July 3, 2003), better known as C. C. Wang, was a Chinese-born artist and art collector based in New York City.\n\nLife\nWang was born in Suzhou, China in 1907. He studied law in Shanghai, and then in 1936 decided to devote himself to art. In 1949, to escape the exigencies of the communist revolution in China, he emigrated to the United States with his wife and two youngest daughters, leaving his son and oldest daughter behind.\n\nCollection\nHis collection of ancient Chinese paintings is consistently listed as one of the greatest such collections in the world. In 1998, 25 paintings from his collection were given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the most important works in this group was the hanging scroll Riverbank by 10th century master Dong Yuan, whose authenticity, however, was controversially challenged by the art historian James Cahill.\n\nArt\nExamples of his own paintings are the last authentic examples of \"literati art\" from China. Several expatriates practiced the style after the Communist revolution, but he was the last to die of those who practiced it, and the style was not permitted immediately after the revolution. Subsequent generations had no one to pass the style onto, and so it died out with the few expatriates practicing abroad, like Wang.\n\nDeath\nMr. Wang died July 3, 2003 in New York City.\n\nReferences and further reading\n \nOn C. C. Wang's purchase of the Contag collection, see Cahill's note at: http://jamescahill.info/the-writings-of-james-cahill/responses-a-reminiscences/154-32what-became-of-the-contag-collection\nNotes made by James Cahill on forgeries/copies of works in various private (including C. C. Wang's) and museum collections: http://jamescahill.info/File/LS_lecture_notes/Addendum%20B.pdf\nA detailed biography of C. C. Wang can be found at: http://www.echinaart.com/Advisor/adv_ccwang_gallery.htm\n\nNotes\n\nChinese art collectors\n1907 births\n2003 deaths\nArtists from Suzhou\nChinese emigrants to the United States"
]
|
[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III.",
"What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other?",
"Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century.",
"What was unique about Style II?",
"Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs,",
"What was Style III art like?",
"Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art."
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | Did a lot of the Animal Style art survive? | 5 | Did a lot of the Animal Style art survive? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | false | [
"Animal style art is an approach to decoration found from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period, characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The zoomorphic style of decoration was used to decorate small objects by warrior-herdsmen, whose economy was based on breeding and herding animals, supplemented by trade and plunder. Animal art is a more general term for all art depicting animals.\n\nEastern styles\n\nScythian art makes great use of animal motifs, one component of the \"Scythian triad\" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild animal art. The cultures referred to as Scythian-style included the Cimmerian and Sarmatian cultures in European Sarmatia and stretched across the Eurasian steppe north of the Near East to the Ordos culture of China. These cultures were extremely influential in spreading many local versions of the style.\n\nSteppe jewellery features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles bunched tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The \"looped\" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period. The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include the examples from:\nthe Arzhan kurgan, Tuva, Siberia, with animal style artifacts (8-7th century BC).\nthe burial site of Kostromskaya in the Kuban dating from the 6th century BC (Hermitage)\nTápiószentmárton in Hungary dating from the 5th century BC, now National Museum of Hungary, Budapest\nKul Oba in the Crimea dating from the 4th century BC (Hermitage).\n\nAnother characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.\n\nAlthough gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armour.\n\nThe use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess and powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.\n\nA distinct Permian style of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the Ural mountains and the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia.\n\nGermanic animal style\nThe study of Germanic zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the \"barbarian\" peoples during the Migration Period.\n\nStyle I. First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.\n\nStyle II. After about 560–570 Style I, declining, began to be supplanted. The animals of Style II are whole beasts, their bodies elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism—rarely with legs—tending to be described as serpents, though heads often have characteristics of other animals. The animals become subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically interlace. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid (picture) from Sutton Hoo (c. 625).\n\nEventually about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel. Animals' bodies become hard for the unpractised viewer to read, and there is a very common motif of the \"gripping beast\" where an animal's mouth grips onto another element of the composition to connect two parts. Animal style was one component, along with Celtic art and late classical elements, in the formation of style of Insular art and Anglo-Saxon art in the British Isles, and through these routes and others on the Continent, left a considerable legacy in later Medieval art.\n\nOther names are sometimes used: in Anglo-Saxon art Kendrick preferred \"Helmet\" and \"Ribbon\" for Styles I and II.\n\nSee also\n Migration Period art\n Thracian art\n Persian-Sassanid art patterns\n Confronted-animals\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Perm Animal Style: Photo gallery (Virtual museum)\n Perm Animal Style\nNomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on and examples of animal style\nAndreeva, Petya, \"Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art\", University of Pennsylvania, 2018: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2963/\nSalin Styles in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology\n\nVisual arts genres\nArchaeology of Central Asia\nArchaeology of Siberia\nMedieval art\nIron Age art of Europe\nIndo-European art\nEarly Germanic art\nAnimals in art",
"Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and geometric designs, often interlaced and intricately carved into small panels. Famous examples include the Pentney Hoard, the Abingdon sword, the Fuller brooch, and the Strickland brooch.\n\nHistory \n\nTrewhiddle style is named after the Trewhiddle Hoard found in 1774 near Trewhiddle, Cornwall. The treasure contained a number of objects, including Anglo-Saxon coins, a silver chalice, and other gold and silver pieces. The artefacts can be dated to the ninth century. The animal ornamentation of some of the Trewhiddle Hoard items became a focus of study by Anglo-Saxon art historians and archaeologists in the early twentieth century. Sir Thomas Kendrick was the first historian to illustrate the uninterrupted use of Anglo-Saxon animal ornament, from the last days of Roman Britain to the early Anglo-Saxon period. Danish archaeologist, Johannes Brøndsted, acknowledged the historical importance of the lively decorative elements of the hoard by naming the ninth century style, the \"Trewhiddle style\".\n\nTrewhiddle style is most likely the outcome of evolving Anglo-Saxon art forms. The Animal style decoration and complex patterns that were found in early England, continued to develop over time. According to David M. Wilson, \"If we look at the animal ornament on the metalwork of any period between 450 and 950, we can see the same traditions at work. The animal on the Faversham brooch, the animal on the Sutton Hoo clasps, and the animal on the horse trappings of Källby are in a sequence that leads up to Trewhiddle and beyond.\"\n\nArt historians have recognized important similarities between Trewhiddle art and Irish art, yet no historian has proposed that Trewhiddle art was influenced by Irish art. It is most likely that the animal art of the Trewhiddle objects originated in England and to a small degree was influenced by Continental art from the Mediterranean, Francia, or Celtic world.\n\nEarlier scholars have theorized that the Trewhiddle style was confined to the ninth century. The style has been difficult to date given the lack of independent dating evidence associated with Trewhiddle finds. It has been suggested, as more Trewhiddle artefacts continue to be found, that the birth of the Trehiddle style may have occurred in the eighth century. It has also been suggested, given more recent excavation of Trewhiddle style artefacts, including those found at Anglo-Saxon sites in Yorkshire in the 1980s and the late 1990s, that the Trewhiddle style continued to be produced in Northern England into the tenth century. Until more information becomes available to Trewhiddle scholars, the style continues to be dated to the ninth century.\n\nStyle features \nThe Trewhiddle style is recognized for its intricately carved decoration, including animal, plant, interlace and geometric patterns; niello inlays, densely decorated surfaces, and dome-headed rivets. A defining feature is the dividing of the main area of decoration into small panels, typically separated by beaded borders. Panels usually contain a single motif, typically a crouching, backward-looking or biting animal. Speckling of individual motifs was a technique frequently used to create surface texture or movement.\n\nThe animal forms are many, including variations of mythical birds, snakes and beasts, usually depicted in profile. Plant motifs vary from intricately carved individual leaves to complete plants, often combined with animal forms and interlace. Interlace is more commonly seen combined with zoomorphic and plant motifs, rather than on its own. When used singly, the interlace pattern is typically simple and closed. When used with plant or animal forms, the decoration is generally a more complex design.\n\nMetalwork \nTrewhiddle style was primarily used to decorate metalwork. During the late Anglo-Saxon era, silver was the precious metal most commonly used to create Trewhiddle style jewellery and to decorate weapons. Viking trade and expansion during the ninth and tenth centuries brought new supplies of silver from the Near East to England and Scandinavia. The rapid change from the use of gold to silver in metalwork manufacturing, was due to abundant new supplies of silver that were made available to craftsmen during this time period. Subsequently, gold became the preferred metal to manufacture finger-rings or for gilding and inlay.\n\nWeapons \n \nTrewhiddle was a commonly used decoration style for late Anglo-Saxon swords. The Abingdon sword, found near the village of Abingdon and now in the Ashmolean Museum, is decorated with silver mounts inlaid with niello. The River Witham sword, has a silver Trewhiddle style hilt is decorated with animal motifs, inlaid with niello. \n\nThe sword pommel from the Bedale Hoard, is engraved with panels of gold foil inlay, and decorated with carved, intertwined animals and an intricate gold leaf pattern. The Anglo-Saxon weapon can be dated to the late ninth or early tenth century.\n\nThree sword hilts, all from the Norwegian areas of Høven, Dolven and Gronneberg, were manufactured in the Trewhiddle style, all composed of niello inlays. The Dolven and Gronnenberg hilts are decorated in a similar manner to the River Witham sword. The Høven hilt is decorated with intertwined bird and animal forms, similar in style to the Fuller Brooch.\n\nJewellery \n \n\nAnglo-Saxon jewellery during the ninth and early tenth century is renowned for its superb craftsmanship and animated, intricately carved designs. Typically cast in silver, open-work disc brooches decorated in the Trewhiddle style are the most recognized examples of late Anglo-Saxon jewellery style.\n\nThe Pentney Hoard is probably the best known example of Trewhiddle style. The Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered in a Pentney, Norfolk churchyard in 1978. The six silver open-work disc brooches, date to the early 9th century, and include two non-identical brooch pairs and two singleton brooches.\n\nThe Æthelwulf\nand Æthelswith finger-rings are important examples of Trewhiddle style gold metalwork. The rings belonged to Æthelwulf, King of Wessex and his daughter, Æthelswith (838-888 AD). Æthelwulf was the father of Alfred the Great. His rule spanned the years between 836 and 858 AD. Ethelswith reigned as Queen of Mercia from 853 to 874, when her husband King Burgred of Mercia died. The rings are significant in that they both contain unusual images of Christian iconography: the Lamb of God is featured on Æthelswith's ring and two peacocks drinking at the Fountain of Life are the central image on Æthelwulf's ring.\n\nThe Fuller Brooch, an intricately carved silver and niello inlay brooch, is dated to the late 9th century. The circular brooch illustrates the embodiment of the Five Senses. Belonging to the late Trewhiddle style, and featuring Trewhiddle style animals, birds, plants and humans, the Anglo-Saxon brooch is rare for its use of anthropomorphic motifs. It is considered one of the most famous examples of Anglo-Saxon art.\n\nThe Strickland Brooch, a mid-ninth century silver and niello inlay disc brooch is similar in design to the Fuller Brooch. Both pieces of jewellery are made from sheet silver and inlaid with niello and gold. The Strickland Brooch's lively open-work design is elaborately carved with collared dog-like beasts and animal heads.\n\nStrap-ends\nLate Anglo-Saxon era strap-ends, accessories used to fasten to the end of a strap or belt to keep it from unraveling, were often decorated in the Trewhiddle style. The eight strap-ends of the Poppleton hoard, discovered near Upper Poppleton, Yorkshire, and dating from the late 9th to early 10th century, are excellent examples of Trewhiddle style metalwork.\n\nSee also\n\n Insular art\n Migration period art\n Celtic art\n Viking art\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n\nAnglo-Saxon art\nEnglish art\nMedieval art\n9th century in England"
]
|
[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III.",
"What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other?",
"Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century.",
"What was unique about Style II?",
"Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs,",
"What was Style III art like?",
"Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.",
"Did a lot of the Animal Style art survive?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Aside from Animal Style art, are there any other interesting aspects about Migration Period Art, Animal Style? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | true | [
"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"
]
|
[
"Migration Period art",
"Animal style",
"When did the Animal Style art develop?",
"animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III.",
"What distinguished the three styles of animal art from each other?",
"Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century.",
"What was unique about Style II?",
"Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into \"ribbons\" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs,",
"What was Style III art like?",
"Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.",
"Did a lot of the Animal Style art survive?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace."
]
| C_4d33bad31ff94e64917f34896ae7e97f_0 | What type of materials did they use to create this art? | 7 | What type of materials did the Vikings use to create ornamental patterns? | Migration Period art | The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period. Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns. Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretence of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. After about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art. CANNOTANSWER | Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid. | Migration Period art denotes the artwork of the Germanic peoples during the Migration period (c. 300 – 900). It includes the Migration art of the Germanic tribes on the continent, as well the start of the Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic fusion in Britain and Ireland. It covers many different styles of art including the polychrome style and the animal style. After Christianization, Migration Period art developed into various schools of Early Medieval art in Western Europe which are normally classified by region, such as Anglo-Saxon art and Carolingian art, before the continent-wide styles of Romanesque art and finally Gothic art developed.
Background
In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.
Although these kingdoms were never homogeneous, they shared certain common cultural features. They settled in their new lands and became farmers and fishermen. Archaeological evidence shows no tradition of monumental artwork, such as architecture or large sculpture in permanent materials, but a preference instead for "mobile" art for personal display, usually also with a practical function, such as weapons, horse harness, tools, and jewelry which fastened clothes. The surviving art of the Germanic peoples is almost entirely personal adornment, portable, and before conversion to Christianity was buried with its owner. Much art in organic materials has no doubt not survived.
Three styles dominate Germanic art. The polychrome style originated with the Goths who had settled in the Black Sea area. The animal style was found in Scandinavia, north Germany and England. Finally there was Insular art or the Hiberno-Saxon style, a brief but prosperous period after Christianization that saw the fusion of animal style, Celtic, Mediterranean and other motifs and techniques.
Migration art
Polychrome style
During the 2nd century the Goths of southern Russia discovered a newfound taste for gold figurines and objects inlaid with precious stones. This style was borrowed from Scythians and the Sarmatians, had some Greco-Roman influences, and was also popular with the Huns. Perhaps the most famous examples are found in the fourth-century Pietroasele treasure (Romania), which includes a great gold eagle brooch (picture). The eagle motif derives from East Asia and results from the participation of the forebears of the Goths in the Hunnic Empire, as in the fourth-century Gothic polychrome eagle-head belt buckle (picture) from South Russia.
The Goths carried this style to Italy, southern France and Spain. One well known example is the Ostrogothic eagle (fibula) from Cesena, Italy, now at the museum in Nuremberg. Another is the Visigothic polychrome votive crown (picture) of Recceswinth, King of Toledo, found in a votive crown hoard of c. 670 at Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo. The popularity of the style can be attested to by the discovery of a polychrome sword (picture) in the tomb of Frankish king Childeric I (died ca 481), well north of the Alps.
Animal style
The study of Northern European, or "Germanic", zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. He classified animal art of the period roughly from 400 to 900 into three phases: Styles I, II and III. The origins of these different phases are still the subject of considerable debate; the development of trends in late-Roman popular art in the provinces is one element, and the older traditions of nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples another. The first two styles are found very widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples of the Migration Period.
Style I. First appears in northwest Europe, it became a noticeable new style with the introduction of the chip carving technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.
Style II. After about 560-570 Style I was in decline and Salin's Style II began to replace it. Style II's animals are whole beasts, but their bodies are elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism, and rarely any legs, so that they tend to be described as serpents, although the heads often have characteristics of other types of animal. The animal becomes subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically using interlace. Thus two bears are facing each other in perfect symmetry ("confronted"), forming the shape of a heart. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid.
After about 700 localized styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style. Salin Style III is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called Viking art.
Christian influence
Byzantine enameling highly influenced Migration period metalwork. The Church in the early Migration period emerged as the only supranational force in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided a unifying element and was the only institution left that could preserve selected rudiments of classical civilization. As the conversion of Germanic peoples by the end of the 7th centuries in western Europe neared completion, the church became the prime patron for art, commissioning illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical objects. The record shows a steady decline in Germanic forms and increasing Mediterranean influence. This process occurred quickly with the Goths of Italy and Spain and more slowly the further north one looked. This change can be observed in the 8th century Merovingian codex Gelasian Sacramentary, it contained no Style II elements, instead showing Mediterranean examples of fish used to construct large letters at the start of chapters.
Insular art
Insular art, often also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, especially in relation to illuminated manuscripts) was confined to Great Britain and Ireland and was the fusion of Germanic traditions (via the Anglo-Saxons) with Celtic traditions (via Irish monks). It can first be seen in the late 7th century and the style would continue in Britain for about 150 years until the Viking invasions of the 9th century (after which we see the emergence of Anglo-Saxon art), and in Ireland up until the 12th century (after which see Romanesque art).
History
Ireland was converted to Christianity by missions from Britain and the continent, beginning in the mid-fifth century, while simultaneously pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes were settling in England. The extreme political fragmentation of Ireland and its total lack of urban development prevented the emergence of a strong episcopal structure. Monasticism consequently emerged as the dominant force in Irish Christianity, and thus in Irish Christian art.
Celtic Christianity also developed a strong emphasis on missionary activity. Around 563 Saint Columba founded a base on the Scottish island of Iona, from which to convert Pictish pagans in Scotland; this monastic settlement became long remained a key center of Christian culture in northern Britain. Columban monks then went to Northumbria in 635 and founded a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, from which to convert the north of England. However Rome had already begun the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from the south with a mission to Kent in 597. Conflict arose between the Irish monks and Rome on the date to celebrate Easter, leading to withdrawal of the Irish mission from Lindisfarne to Iona. However, the widespread use of Irish decorative forms in art produced in England, and vice versa, attests to the continuing importance of interaction between the two cultures. England would come under increasing Mediterranean influence, but not before Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art had profitably fused.
The first major work that can be called purely Hiberno-Saxon is the Book of Durrow in the late 7th century. There followed a golden age in metalworking, manuscripts and stone sculpture. In the 9th century the heyday of the Hiberno-Saxon style neared its end, with the disruptions of Viking raids and the increasing dominance of Mediterranean forms (see Anglo-Saxon art).
Illuminated manuscripts
The surviving evidence of Irish Celtic art from the Iron Age period is dominated by metalwork in a La Tène style. Hanging bowls such as those found at Sutton Hoo are among some of the most important of these crafts. As Irish missionaries began to spread the word of the Gospels they needed books, and almost from the start, they began to embellish their texts with artwork drawing from the designs of these metalworking traditions. The spirals and scrolls in the enlarged opening letters—found in the earliest manuscripts such as the 7th century Cathach of St. Columba manuscript—borrows in style directly from Celtic enamels and La Tène metalworking motifs.
After the Cathach of St. Columba, book decoration became increasingly more complex and new styles from other cultures were introduced. Carpet pages—entire pages of ornamentation with no text—were inserted, usually at the start of each Gospel. The geometric motifs and interlaced patterns may have been influences from Coptic Egypt or elsewhere in the Byzantine Middle East. The increasing use of animal ornamentation was an Anglo-Saxon contribution of its animal style. All of these influences and traditions combined into what could be called a new Hiberno-Saxon style, with the Book of Durrow in the later 7th century being the first of its type. The Lindisfarne Gospels is another famous example.
The Book of Kells was probably created in Iona in the 8th century. When the monks fled to Ireland in the face of Viking raids in 807, they probably brought it with them to Kells in Ireland. It is the most richly decorated of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts and represents a large array of techniques and motifs created during the 8th century.
Metalworking
In the 7th century there emerged a resurgence of metalworking with new techniques such as gold filigree that allowed ever smaller and more detailed ornamentations, especially on the penannular and pseudo-penannular Celtic brooches that were important symbols of status for the elite, and also worn by clergy as part of their vestments. The Tara Brooch and Ardagh Hoard are among the most magnificent Insular examples, whilst the 7th century royal jewelry from the Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a Pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon style. They brought together all of the available skills of the goldsmith in one piece: ornamentation applied to a variety of techniques and materials, chip carving, filigree, cloisonné and rock crystal.
Stone sculpture
The skills displayed in metalworking can be seen in stone sculptures. For many centuries it had been Irish custom to display a large wooden cross inside the monastic building enclosure. These were then translated into stone crosses called high crosses and covered with the same intricate patterns used by goldsmiths, and often figure sculptures.
See also
Viking art
Hercules' Club (amulet)
Confronted-animals
Anglo-Saxon art
Notes
References
Martin Werner, "Migration and Hiberno-Saxon Art", Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol-8,
"Hiberno-Saxon style". In Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Further reading
Boltin, Lee, ed.: Treasures of Early Irish Art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.: From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, Dublin, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977, .
Malcolm, Todd, The Early Germans
External links
Images from History, see "Iron Age Europe".
Eagle Fibula at the Walters Art Museum
Art
Medieval art
Early Germanic art
5th century in art
6th century in art
7th century in art
8th century in art
9th century in art
10th century in art
Art by period of creation | true | [
"In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed.\nAssemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art include, but are not limited to, paint, cloth, paper, wood and found objects.\n\nMixed media art is distinguished from multimedia art which combines visual art with non-visual elements, such as recorded sound, literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity.\n\nHistory of mixed media \nThe first modern artwork to be considered mixed media is Pablo Picasso's 1912 collage Still Life with Chair Caning, which used paper, cloth, paint and rope to create a pseudo-3D effect. The influence of movements like Cubism and Dada contributed to the mixed media's growth in popularity throughout the 20th century with artists like Henri Matisse, Joseph Cornell, Jean Dubuffet, and Ellsworth Kelly adopting it. This led to further innovations like installations in the late 20th century. Mixed media continues to be a popular form for artists, with different forms like wet media and markings being explored.\n\nTypes of mixed media art \nMixed media art can be differentiated into distinct types, some of which are:\n\nCollage: This is an art form which involves combining different materials like ribbons, newspaper clippings, photographs etc. to create a new whole. While it was a sporadic practice in antiquity, it became a fundamental part of modern art in the early 20th century, due to the efforts of Braque and Picasso.\n\nAssemblage: This is a 3-dimensional variant of the collage with elements jutting in or out of a defined substrate, or an entirely 3-D arrangement of objects and/or sculptures.\n\nFound object art: These are objects that are found and used by artists and incorporated into artworks because of their perceived artistic value. It was popularized by the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp.\n\nAltered books: This is a specific form where the artist will reuse a book by modifying/altering it physically for use in the work. This can involve physically cutting and pasting pages to change the contents of the book or using the materials of the book as contents for an art piece.\n\nWet and Dry Media: Wet media consists of materials such as paints and inks that use some sort of liquidity in their usage or composition. Dry materials (such as pencils, charcoal, and crayons) are lacking this inherent liquidity. Using wet and dry media in conjunction is considered mixed media for its combination of inherently differing media to create a finalized piece.\n\nExamples of mixed media artwork \nMixed media artists have been able to take any material they want in the last century and produce artwork with a whole new dimension. The process is just as crucial for these creative minds - because it evolves along with their art mediums. That's the beauty of mixed media artwork - it is constantly changing, and anything goes.\n\nStill Life with Chair Caning: Picasso's piece depicts what can be seen as a table with a cut lemon, a knife, a napkin and a newspaper among other discernible objects. It is elliptical (with speculation that the work itself could be depicting a porthole) and uses a piece of rope to form its edge. Paper and cloth are used for the objects present on the table.\n\nAngel of Anarchy: Eileen Agar's 1937 sculpture is a modified bust of Joseph Bard, which was covered by paper and fur. When this was lost, she made a 1940 variation which shrouded and blinded the figure with feathers, beads and cloth creating an entirely different perspective on the sculpture.\n\nSee also\nAltered book\nArtist trading cards\nCollage\nDécollage\nIntermedia \nList of mixed media artists\nModular art\nMultimedia\nNew media art\nQuilt art\nVisual Focus Depth Art\n\nReferences \n\nVisual arts media\nContemporary art\nPainting",
"A riding horse or a saddle horse is a horse used by mounted horse riders for recreation or transportation.\n\nIt is unclear exactly when horses were first ridden because early domestication did not create noticeable physical changes in the horse. However, there is strong circumstantial evidence that horse were ridden by people of the Botai culture during the Copper Age, circa 3600-3100 BCE. The earliest evidence suggesting horses were ridden dates to about 3500 BCE, where evidence from horse skulls found at site in Kazakhstan indicated that they had worn some type of bit. Wear facets of 3 mm or more were found on seven horse premolars in two sites, Botai and Kozhai 1, dated about 3500–3000 BCE. It is theorized that people herding animals first rode horses for this purpose, presumably bareback, and probably used soft materials such as rope or possibly bone to create rudimentary bridles and hackamores. However, the earliest definitive evidence of horses being ridden dates to art and textual evidence dating to about 2000-1500 BCE.\n\nMany different horse breeds and types are suitable for riding, and body type varies widely depending on the equestrianism work they are asked to perform and the equitation style of the rider.\n\nSee also\nDriving (horse)\nDomestication of the horse\n\nReferences\n\nEquestrianism"
]
|
[
"Hubert Humphrey",
"Chicago riots and party fallout"
]
| C_c69d1ec09c124f158fcdca0296f5b904_1 | Who was the running mate of Humphrey? | 1 | Who was the running mate of Hubert Humphrey? | Hubert Humphrey | Humphrey and his running mate, Ed Muskie, who had not entered any of the 13 state primary elections, went on to win the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, Illinois even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for anti-war candidates, the delegates had defeated the peace plank by 1,567 3/4 to 1,041 1/4 . Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheater convention hall (closed 1999), and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by the thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other "anti-war" candidates. These protesters - most of them young college students - were attacked and beaten on live television by Chicago police, actions which merely amplified the growing feelings of unrest in the general public. Humphrey's inaction during these activities along with President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's behind the scenes convention influencing, public backlash from securing the presidential nomination without entering a single primary, as well as Humphrey refusal to meet McCarthy half way on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's lack of full endorsement of Humphrey, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of the unpopularity of Johnson, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans when both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated during the election year, were all contributing factors that caused him to eventually lose the election to former Vice President Nixon. Although he lost the election by less than 1% of the popular vote, 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839 votes) for Humphrey, with 13.5% (9,901,118 votes) for George Wallace, Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes. Richard Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried 5 states in the South and 46 electoral votes (270 were needed to win). In his concession speech, Humphrey said: "I have done my best. I have lost, Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will." CANNOTANSWER | Ed Muskie, | Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. As a senator he was a major leader of modern liberalism in the United States. As President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, he supported the controversial Vietnam War. An intensely divided Democratic Party nominated him in the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.
Born in Wallace, South Dakota, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota. In 1943, he became a professor of political science at Macalester College and ran a failed campaign for mayor of Minneapolis. He helped found the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) in 1944; the next year he was elected mayor of Minneapolis, serving until 1948 and co-founding the liberal anti-communist group Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and successfully advocated for the inclusion of a proposal to end racial segregation in the 1948 Democratic National Convention's party platform. He was a leader of American liberalism, especially in supporting civil rights. Liberals split over his strong support for the Vietnam War.
Humphrey served three terms in the Senate from 1949 to 1964, and was the Senate Majority Whip for the last four years of his tenure. During this time, he was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the first initiative to create the Peace Corps, and chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament. He unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 1952 and 1960. After Lyndon B. Johnson acceded to the presidency, he chose Humphrey as his running mate, and the Democratic ticket won a landslide victory in the 1964 election.
In March 1968, Johnson made his surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, and Humphrey launched his campaign for the presidency. Loyal to the Johnson administration's policies on the Vietnam War, he received opposition from many within his own party and avoided the primaries to focus on winning the delegates of non-primary states at the Democratic Convention. His delegate strategy succeeded in clinching the nomination, and he chose Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. In the general election, he nearly matched Nixon's tally in the popular vote but lost the electoral vote by a wide margin. After the defeat, he returned to the Senate and served from 1971 until his death in 1978. From 1977 to 1979, he served as Deputy President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
Early life and education
Humphrey was born in a room over his father's drugstore in Wallace, South Dakota. He was the son of Ragnild Kristine Sannes (1883–1973), a Norwegian immigrant, and Hubert Horatio Humphrey Sr. (1882–1949). Humphrey spent most of his youth in Doland, South Dakota, on the Dakota prairie; the town's population was about 600. His father was a licensed pharmacist and merchant who served as mayor and a town council member. The father also served briefly in the South Dakota state legislature and was a South Dakota delegate to the 1944 and 1948 Democratic National Conventions. In the late 1920s, a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both banks in the town closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his store open.
After his son graduated from Doland's high school, Hubert Sr. left Doland and opened a new drugstore in the larger town of Huron, South Dakota (population 11,000), where he hoped to improve his fortunes. Because of the family's financial struggles, Humphrey had to leave the University of Minnesota after just one year. He earned a pharmacist's license from the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado (completing a two-year licensure program in just six months), and helped his father run his store from 1931 to 1937. Both father and son were innovative in finding ways to attract customers: "to supplement their business, the Humphreys had become manufacturers ... of patent medicines for both hogs and humans. A sign featuring a wooden pig was hung over the drugstore to tell the public about this unusual service. Farmers got the message, and it was Humphrey's that became known as the farmer's drugstore." One biographer noted, "while Hubert Jr. minded the store and stirred the concoctions in the basement, Hubert Sr. went on the road selling 'Humphrey's BTV' (Body Tone Veterinary), a mineral supplement and dewormer for hogs, and 'Humphrey's Chest Oil' and 'Humphrey's Sniffles' for two-legged sufferers." Humphrey later wrote, "we made 'Humphrey's Sniffles', a substitute for Vick's Nose Drops. I felt ours were better. Vick's used mineral oil, which is not absorbent, and we used a vegetable-oil base, which was. I added benzocaine, a local anesthetic, so that even if the sniffles didn't get better, you felt it less." The various "Humphrey cures ... worked well enough and constituted an important part of the family income ... the farmers that bought the medicines were good customers." Over time Humphrey's Drug Store became a profitable enterprise and the family again prospered. While living in Huron, Humphrey regularly attended Huron's largest Methodist church and became scoutmaster of the church's Boy Scout Troop 6. He "started basketball games in the church basement ... although his scouts had no money for camp in 1931, Hubert found a way in the worst of that summer's dust-storm grit, grasshoppers, and depression to lead an overnight [outing]."
Humphrey did not enjoy working as a pharmacist, and his dream remained to earn a doctorate in political science and become a college professor. His unhappiness was manifested in "stomach pains and fainting spells", though doctors could find nothing wrong with him. In August 1937, he told his father that he wanted to return to the University of Minnesota. Hubert Sr. tried to convince his son not to leave by offering him a full partnership in the store, but Hubert Jr. refused and told his father "how depressed I was, almost physically ill from the work, the dust storms, the conflict between my desire to do something and be somebody and my loyalty to him ... he replied 'Hubert, if you aren't happy, then you ought to do something about it'." Humphrey returned to the University of Minnesota in 1937 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. He was a member of Phi Delta Chi, a pharmacy fraternity. He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. One of his classmates was Russell B. Long, a future U.S. Senator from Louisiana.
He then became an instructor and doctoral student at the University of Minnesota from 1940 to 1941 (joining the American Federation of Teachers), and was a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Humphrey was a star on the university's debate team; one of his teammates was future Minnesota Governor and US Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. In the 1940 presidential campaign Humphrey and future University of Minnesota president Malcolm Moos debated the merits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, and Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee, on a Minneapolis radio station. Humphrey supported Roosevelt. Humphrey soon became active in Minneapolis politics, and as a result never finished his PhD.
Marriage and early career
In 1934, Humphrey began dating Muriel Buck, a bookkeeper and graduate of local Huron College. They were married from 1936 until Humphrey's death nearly 42 years later. They had four children: Nancy Faye, Hubert Horatio III, Robert Andrew, and Douglas Sannes. Money was an issue. One biographer noted, "For much of his life he was short of money to live on, and his relentless drive to attain the White House seemed at times like one long, losing struggle to raise enough campaign funds to get there." To help boost his salary, Humphrey frequently took paid outside speaking engagements. Through most of his years as a U.S. senator and vice president, he lived in a middle-class suburban housing development in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In 1958, the Humphreys used their savings and his speaking fees to build a lakefront home in Waverly, Minnesota, about 40 miles west of Minneapolis.
During World War II, Humphrey tried three times to join the armed forces but failed. His first two attempts were to join the Navy, first as a commissioned officer and then as an enlisted man. He was rejected both times for color blindness. He then tried to enlist in the Army in December 1944 but failed the physical exam because of a double hernia, color blindness, and calcification of the lungs. Despite his attempts to join the military, one biographer would note that "all through his political life, Humphrey was dogged by the charge that he was a draft dodger" during the war.
Humphrey led various wartime government agencies and worked as a college instructor. In 1942, he was the state director of new production training and reemployment and chief of the Minnesota war service program. In 1943 he was the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. From 1943 to 1944, Humphrey was a professor of political science at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he headed the university's recently created international debate department, which focused on the international politics of World War II and the creation of the United Nations. After leaving Macalester in the spring of 1944, Humphrey worked as a news commentator for a Minneapolis radio station until 1945.
In 1943, Humphrey made his first run for elective office, for Mayor of Minneapolis. He lost, but his poorly funded campaign still captured over 47% of the vote. In 1944, Humphrey was one of the key players in the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties of Minnesota to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He also worked on President Roosevelt's 1944 reelection campaign. When Minnesota Communists tried to seize control of the new party in 1945, Humphrey became an engaged anticommunist and led the successful fight to oust the Communists from the DFL.
After the war, he again ran for mayor of Minneapolis; this time, he won the election with 61% of the vote. As mayor, he helped ensure the appointment of a friend and previous neighbor, Edwin Ryan, as head of the police department, as he needed a "police chief whose integrity and loyalty would be above reproach." Though they had differing views of labor unions, Ryan and Humphrey worked together to crack down on crime in Minneapolis. Humphrey told Ryan, "I want this town cleaned up and I mean I want it cleaned up now, not a year from now or a month from now, right now", and "You take care of the law enforcement. I'll take care of the politics." Humphrey served as mayor from 1945 to 1948, winning reelection in 1947 by the largest margin in the city's history to that time. Humphrey gained national fame by becoming one of the founders of the liberal anticommunist Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), and he served as chairman from 1949 to 1950. He also reformed the Minneapolis police force. The city had been named the "anti-Semitism capital" of the country, and its small African-American population also faced discrimination. Humphrey's mayoralty is noted for his efforts to fight all forms of bigotry. He formed the Council on Human Relations and established a municipal version of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, making Minneapolis one of only a few cities in the United States to prohibit racial discrimination in the workforce. Humphrey and his publicists were proud that the Council on Human Relations brought together individuals of varying ideologies. In 1960, Humphrey told journalist Theodore H. White, "I was mayor once, in Minneapolis ... a mayor is a fine job, it's the best job there is between being a governor and being the President."
1948 Democratic National Convention
The Democratic Party of 1948 was split between those, mainly Northerners, who thought the federal government should actively protect civil rights for racial minorities, and those, mainly Southerners, who believed that states should be able to enforce traditional racial segregation within their borders.
At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the party platform reflected the division by containing only platitudes supporting civil rights. The incumbent president, Harry S. Truman, had shelved most of his 1946 Commission on Civil Rights's recommendations to avoid angering Southern Democrats. But Humphrey had written in The Progressive magazine, "The Democratic Party must lead the fight for every principle in the report. It is all or nothing."
A diverse coalition opposed the convention's tepid civil rights platform, including anticommunist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John F. Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party. They proposed adding a "minority plank" to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to more aggressive opposition to racial segregation. The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. Also strongly backing the minority plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh. Although seen as conservatives, the urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, with only comparatively small losses from Southern Democrats. Although many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, except for the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney.
Despite Truman's aides' aggressive pressure to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey spoke for the minority plank. In a renowned speech, Humphrey passionately told the Convention, "To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey and his allies succeeded: the convention adopted the pro-civil-rights plank by a vote of 651 to 582.
After the convention's vote, the Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation walked out of the hall. Many Southern Democrats were so enraged at this affront to their "way of life" that they formed the Dixiecrat party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The Dixiecrats' goal was to take Southern states away from Truman and thus cause his defeat. They reasoned that after such a defeat, the national Democratic Party would never again aggressively pursue a pro-civil rights agenda. The move backfired: although the civil rights plank cost Truman the Dixiecrats' support, it gained him many votes from blacks, especially in large northern cities. As a result, Truman won an upset victory over his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. The result demonstrated that the Democratic Party could win presidential elections without the "Solid South" and weakened Southern Democrats. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has written that Humphrey probably did more to get Truman elected in 1948 than anyone other than Truman himself.
United States Senate (1949–1964)
Humphrey was elected to the United States Senate in 1948 on the DFL ticket, defeating James M. Shields in the DFL primary with 89% of the vote, and unseating incumbent Republican Joseph H. Ball in the general election with 60% of the vote. He took office on January 3, 1949, becoming the first Democrat elected senator from Minnesota since before the Civil War. Humphrey wrote that the victory heightened his sense of self, as he had beaten the odds of defeating a Republican with statewide support. Humphrey's father died that year, and Humphrey stopped using the "Jr." suffix on his name. He was reelected in 1954 and 1960. His colleagues selected him as majority whip in 1961, a position he held until he left the Senate on December 29, 1964, to assume the vice presidency. Humphrey served from the 81st to the 87th sessions of Congress, and in a portion of the 88th Congress.
Initially, Humphrey's support of civil rights led to his being ostracized by Southern Democrats, who dominated Senate leadership positions and wanted to punish him for proposing the civil rights platform at the 1948 Convention. Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia, a leader of Southern Democrats, once remarked to other Senators as Humphrey walked by, "Can you imagine the people of Minnesota sending that damn fool down here to represent them?" Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground; his integrity, passion and eloquence eventually earned him the respect of even most of the Southerners. The Southerners were also more inclined to accept Humphrey after he became a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Humphrey became known for his advocacy of liberal causes (such as civil rights, arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid), and for his long and witty speeches.
Humphrey was a liberal leader who fought to uphold Truman's veto of the McCarran Act of 1950. The bill was designed to suppress the American Communist Party. With a small group of liberals he supported the Kilgore substitute that would allow the president to lock up subversives, without trial, in a time of national emergency. The model was the internment of West Coast Japanese in 1942. The goal was to split the McCarren coalition. For years critics charged that Humphrey supported concentration camps. The ploy failed to stop the new law; the Senate voted 57 to 10 to overturn Truman's veto. In 1954 he proposed to make membership in the Communist Party a felony. It was another ploy to derail a bill that would hurt labor unions. Humphrey's proposal did not pass.
Humphrey was the author of the first humane slaughter bill introduced in the U.S. Congress and chief Senate sponsor of the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958.
Humphrey chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament (84th and 85th Congresses). In February 1960 he introduced a bill to establish a National Peace Agency. With another former pharmacist, Representative Carl Durham, Humphrey cosponsored the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, defining two specific categories for medications, legend (prescription) and over-the-counter (OTC).
As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act that year. He was a lead author of its text, alongside Senate Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.
While President John F. Kennedy is often credited for creating the Peace Corps, Humphrey introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years before Kennedy's University of Michigan speech. A trio of journalists wrote of Humphrey in 1969 that "few men in American politics have achieved so much of lasting significance. It was Humphrey, not Senator [Everett] Dirksen, who played the crucial part in the complex parliamentary games that were needed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was Humphrey, not John Kennedy, who first proposed the Peace Corps. The Food for Peace program was Humphrey's idea, and so was Medicare, passed sixteen years after he first proposed it. He worked for Federal aid to education from 1949, and for a nuclear-test ban treaty from 1956. These are the solid monuments of twenty years of effective work for liberal causes in the Senate." President Johnson once said that "Most Senators are minnows ... Hubert Humphrey is among the whales."
In his autobiography, The Education of a Public Man, Humphrey wrote:
There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought the idea was silly and unworkable. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.
On April 9, 1950, Humphrey predicted that President Truman would sign a $4 billion housing bill and charge Republicans with having removed the bill's main middle-income benefits during Truman's tours of the Midwest and Northwest the following month.
On January 7, 1951, Humphrey joined Senator Paul Douglas in calling for an $80 billion federal budget to combat Communist aggression along with a stiff tax increase to prevent borrowing.
In a January 1951 letter to President Truman, Humphrey wrote of the necessity of a commission akin to the Fair Employment Practices Commission that would be used to end discrimination in defense industries and predicted that establishing such a commission by executive order would be met with high approval by Americans.
On June 18, 1953, Humphrey introduced a resolution calling for the US to urge free elections in Germany in response to the anti-Communist riots in East Berlin.
In December 1958, after receiving a message from Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to the Soviet Union, Humphrey returned insisting that the message was not negative toward America. In February 1959, Humphrey said American newspapers should have ignored Khrushchev's comments calling him a purveyor of fairy tales. In a September address to the National Stationery and Office Equipment Association, Humphrey called for further inspection of Khrushchev's "live and let live" doctrine and maintained the Cold War could be won by using American "weapons of peace".
In June 1963, Humphrey accompanied his longtime friend labor leader Walter Reuther on a trip to Harpsund, the Swedish Prime Minister's summer country retreat, to meet with European socialist leaders for an exchange of ideas. Among the European leaders who met with Humphrey and Reuther were the prime ministers of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as well as future German chancellor Willy Brandt.
Presidential and vice-presidential ambitions (1952–1964)
Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice before his election to the Vice Presidency in 1964. The first time was as Minnesota's favorite son in 1952; he received only 26 votes on the first ballot. The second time was in 1960. In between these two bids, Humphrey was part of the free-for-all for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.
In 1960, Humphrey ran for the nomination against fellow Senator John F. Kennedy in the primaries. Their first meeting was in the Wisconsin Primary, where Kennedy's well-organized and well-funded campaign overcame Humphrey's energetic but poorly funded effort. Humphrey believed defeating Kennedy in Wisconsin would weaken and slow the momentum of the latter's campaign. Kennedy's attractive brothers, sisters, and wife Jacqueline combed the state for votes. At one point Humphrey memorably complained that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store". Humphrey later wrote in his memoirs that "Muriel and I and our 'plain folks' entourage were no match for the glamour of Jackie Kennedy and the other Kennedy women, for Peter Lawford ... and Frank Sinatra singing their commercial 'High Hopes'. Jack Kennedy brought family and Hollywood to Wisconsin. The people loved it and the press ate it up." Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, but by a smaller margin than anticipated. Some commentators argued that Kennedy's victory margin had come almost entirely from areas with large Roman Catholic populations, and that Protestants had supported Humphrey. As a result, Humphrey refused to quit the race and decided to run against Kennedy again in the West Virginia primary. According to one biographer "Humphrey thought his chances were good in West Virginia, one of the few states that had backed him in his losing race for vice-president four years earlier ... West Virginia was more rural than urban, [which] seemed to invite Humphrey's folksy stump style. The state, moreover, was a citadel of labor. It was depressed; unemployment had hit hard; and coal miners' families were hungry. Humphrey felt he could talk to such people, who were 95% Protestant (Humphrey was a Congregationalist) and deep-dyed Bible-belters besides."
Kennedy chose to meet the religion issue head-on. In radio broadcasts, he carefully redefined the issue from Catholic versus Protestant to tolerance versus intolerance. Kennedy's appeal placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive, and Kennedy attacked him with a vengeance. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., the son of the former president, stumped for Kennedy in West Virginia and raised the issue of Humphrey's failure to serve in the armed forces in World War II. Roosevelt told audiences, "I don't know where he [Humphrey] was in World War Two," and handed out flyers charging that Humphrey was a draft dodger. Historian Robert Dallek has written that Robert F. Kennedy, who was serving as his brother's campaign manager, came into "possession of information that Humphrey may have sought military deferments during World War Two ... he pressed Roosevelt to use this." Humphrey believed Roosevelt's draft-dodger claim "had been approved by Bobby [Kennedy], if not Jack". The claims that Humphrey was a draft dodger were inaccurate, because during the war Humphrey had "tried and failed to get into the [military] service because of physical disabilities". After the West Virginia primary, Roosevelt sent Humphrey a written apology and retraction. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Roosevelt "felt that he had been used, blaming [the draft-dodger charge] on Robert Kennedy's determination to win at any cost ... Roosevelt said later that it was the biggest political mistake of his career."
Short on funds, Humphrey could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation. He traveled around the state in a rented bus while Kennedy and his staff flew in a large, family-owned airplane. According to his biographer Carl Solberg, Humphrey spent only $23,000 on the West Virginia primary while Kennedy's campaign privately spent $1.5 million, well over their official estimate of $100,000. Unproven accusations claimed that the Kennedys had bought the West Virginia primary by bribing county sheriffs and other local officials to give Kennedy the vote. Humphrey later wrote, "as a professional politician I was able to accept and indeed respect the efficacy of the Kennedy campaign. But underneath the beautiful exterior, there was an element of ruthlessness and toughness that I had trouble either accepting or forgetting." Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly in West Virginia with 60.8% of the vote. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was leaving the race. By winning West Virginia, Kennedy overcame the belief that Protestant voters would not elect a Catholic to the presidency and thus sewed up the Democratic nomination.
Humphrey won the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which Kennedy did not enter. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, he received 41 votes even though he was no longer a candidate.
Vice presidential campaign
Humphrey's defeat in 1960 had a profound influence on his thinking; after the primaries he told friends that, as a relatively poor man in politics, he was unlikely to ever become President unless he served as Vice President first. Humphrey believed that only in this way could he attain the funds, nationwide organization, and visibility he would need to win the Democratic nomination. So as the 1964 presidential campaign began, Humphrey made clear his interest in becoming Lyndon Johnson's running mate. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson kept the three likely vice-presidential candidates, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Humphrey, as well as the rest of the nation, in suspense before announcing his choice of Humphrey with much fanfare, praising his qualifications at considerable length before announcing his name.
The following day Humphrey's acceptance speech overshadowed Johnson's own acceptance address:
In an address before labor leaders in Youngstown, Ohio on September 7, 1964, Humphrey said the labor movement had "more at stake in this election than almost any other segment of society". In Jamesburg, New Jersey on September 10, Humphrey remarked that Goldwater had a "record of retreat and reaction" when it came to issues of urban housing. During a September 12 Denver Democratic rally, Humphrey charged Goldwater with having rejected programs that most Americans and members of his own party supported. At a Santa Fe September 13 rally, Humphrey said the Goldwater-led Republican Party was seeking "to divide America so that they may conquer" and that Goldwater would pinch individuals in his reduction of government. On September 16, Humphrey said the Americans for Democratic Action supported the Johnson administration's economic sanctions against Cuba, and that the organization wanted to see a free Cuban government. The following day in San Antonio, Texas, Humphrey said Goldwater opposed programs favored by most Texans and Americans.
During a September 27 appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, Humphrey said the Kennedy administration had led America in a prosperous direction and called for voters to issue a referendum with their vote against "those who seek to replace the Statue of Liberty with an iron-padlocked gate."
At Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on October 2, Humphrey said the general election would give voters a choice between his running mate and a candidate "who curses the darkness and never lights a candle". During an October 9 Jersey City, New Jersey appearance, Humphrey responded to critics of the administration, who he called "sick and tired Americans", by touting the accomplishments of both Kennedy's and Johnson's presidencies. In Tampa, Florida on October 18, a week after the resignation of Walter Jenkins amid a scandal, Humphrey said he was unaware of any potential security leaks relating to the case. In Minneapolis on October 24, Humphrey listed the censure vote toward Senator Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights bill, and the nuclear test ban treaty as "three great issues of conscience to come before the United States Senate in the past decade" that Goldwater had voted incorrectly on as a Senator. In an October 26 speech in Chicago, Humphrey called Goldwater "neither a Republican nor a Democrat" and "a radical".
The Johnson-Humphrey ticket won the election overwhelmingly, with 486 electoral votes out of 538. Only five Southern states and Goldwater's home state of Arizona supported the Republican ticket. In October Humphrey had predicted that the ticket would win by a large margin but not carry every state.
Vice President-elect of the United States
Soon after winning the election, Humphrey and Johnson went to LBJ ranch near Stonewall, Texas. On November 6, 1964, Humphrey traveled to the Virgin Islands for a two-week vacation. News stations aired taped remarks in which Humphrey stated that he had not discussed with Johnson what his role would be as vice president and that national campaigns should be reduced by four weeks. In a November 20 interview, Humphrey announced he would resign his Senate seat midway through the next month so that Walter Mondale could assume the position.
On December 10, 1964, Humphrey met with Johnson in the Oval Office, the latter charging the vice president-elect with "developing a publicity machine extraordinaire and of always wanting to get his name in the paper." Johnson showed Humphrey a George Reed memo with the allegation that the president would die within six months from an already acquired fatal heart disease. The same day, during a speech in Washington, Johnson announced Humphrey would have the position of giving assistance to governmental civil rights programs.
On January 19, 1965, the day before the inauguration, Humphrey told the Democratic National Committee that the party had unified because of the national consensus established by the presidential election.
Vice Presidency (1965–1969)
Humphrey took office on January 20, 1965, ending the 14-month vacancy of the Vice President of the United States, which had remained empty when then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was an early skeptic of the then growing Vietnam War. Following a successful Viet Cong hit-and-run attack on a US military installation at Pleiku on February 7, 1965 (where 7 Americans were killed and 109 wounded), Humphrey returned from Georgia to Washington D.C., to attempt to prevent further escalation. He told President Johnson that bombing North Vietnam was not a solution to the problems in South Vietnam, but that bombing would require the injection of US ground forces into South Vietnam to protect the airbases. Presciently, he noted that a military solution in Vietnam would take several years, well beyond the next election cycle. In response to this advice, President Johnson punished Humphrey by treating him coldly and restricting him from his inner circle for a number of months, until Humphrey decided to "get back on the team" and fully support the war effort.
As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War. Many of Humphrey's liberal friends and allies abandoned him because of his refusal to publicly criticize Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Humphrey's critics later learned that Johnson had threatened Humphrey – Johnson told Humphrey that if he publicly criticized his policies, he would destroy Humphrey's chances to become President by opposing his nomination at the next Democratic Convention. However, Humphrey's critics were vocal and persistent: even his nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him. The nickname referred not to his military hawkishness, but rather to his crusading for social welfare and civil rights programs. After his narrow defeat in the 1968 presidential election, Humphrey wrote that "After four years as Vice-President ... I had lost some of my personal identity and personal forcefulness. ... I ought not to have let a man [Johnson] who was going to be a former President dictate my future."
While he was Vice President, Hubert Humphrey was the subject of a satirical song by songwriter/musician Tom Lehrer entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?" The song addressed how some liberals and progressives felt let down by Humphrey, who had become a much more mute figure as Vice President than he had been as a senator. The song goes "Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing? Once he shone on his own, now he sits home alone and waits for the phone to ring. Once a fiery liberal spirit, ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it. ..."
During these years Humphrey was a repeated and favorite guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He also struck up a friendship with Frank Sinatra, who supported his campaign for president in 1968 before his conversion to the Republican party in the early 1970s, and was perhaps most on notice in the fall of 1977 when Sinatra was the star attraction and host of a tribute to a then-ailing Humphrey. He also appeared on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1973.
On April 15, 1965, Humphrey delivered an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, pledging the incumbent session of Congress would "do more for the lasting long-term health of this nation" since the initial session in office at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt assuming the presidency in 1933 and predicting 13 major measures of President Johnson's administration would be passed ahead of the session's conclusion. In mid-May 1965, Humphrey traveled to Dallas, Texas for an off-the-record discussion with donors of President Johnson's campaign. During the visit, Humphrey was imposed tight security as a result of the JFK assassination a year and a half prior and the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald was placed under surveillance by Police Chief Cato Hightower.
During a May 31, 1966 appearance at Huron College, Humphrey said the US should not expect "either friendship or gratitude" in helping poorer countries. At a September 22, 1966 Jamesburg, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Humphrey said the Vietnam War would be shortened if the US stayed firm and hastened the return of troops: "We are making a decision not only to defend Vietnam, we are defending the United States of America."
During a May 1967 news conference, Humphrey said American anger toward Vietnam was losing traction and that he could see a growth in popularity for President Johnson since a low point five months prior. During an August 2, 1967 appearance in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey proposed each state consider forming peacekeeping councils focused on preventing violence, gaining community cooperation, and listening to "the voices of those who have gone unheard."
On November 4, 1967, Humphrey cited Malaysia as an example of what Vietnam could resemble post a Viet Cong defeat while in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The following day, Vice President Humphrey requested Indonesia attempt mediation in the Vietnam War during a meeting with Suharto at Merdeka palace. On December 7, Vice President Humphrey said in an interview that the Viet Cong could potentially be the factor in creating a political compromise with the government of Saigon.
Civil rights
In February 1965, President Johnson appointed Humphrey to the chairmanship of the President's Council on Equal Opportunity. The position and board had been proposed by Humphrey, who told Johnson that the board should consist of members of the Cabinet and federal agency leaders and serve multiple roles: assisting agency cooperation, creating federal program consistency, using advanced planning to avoid potential racial unrest, creating public policy, and meeting with local and state level leaders. During his tenure, he appointed Wiley A Branton as executive director. During the first meeting of the group on March 3, Humphrey stated the budget was US$289,000 and pledged to ensure vigorous work by the small staff. Following the Watts riots in August of that year, Johnson downsized Humphrey's role as the administration's expert on civil rights. Dallek wrote the shift in role was in line with the change in policy the Johnson administration underwent in response to "the changing political mood in the country on aid to African Americans." In a private meeting with Joseph Califano on September 18, 1965, President Johnson stated his intent to remove Humphrey from the post of "point man" on civil rights within the administration, believing the vice president was tasked with enough work. Days later, Humphrey met with Johnson, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and White House Counsel Lee C. White. Johnson told Humphrey he would shorten his role within the administration's civil rights policies and pass a portion to Katzenbach, Califano writing that Humphrey agreed to go along with the plan reluctantly.
In an August 1967 speech at a county officials national convention in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey called for the establishment of a Marshall Plan that would curb poverty in the United States as well as address racial violence, and advocated for the creation of civil peace councils that would counter rioting. He said the councils should include representation from all minority groups and religions, state governments, the National Guard, and law enforcement agencies and that the United States would see itself out of trouble only when law and order was reestablished.
Foreign trips
December 1965 saw the beginning of Humphrey's tour of eastern countries, saying he hoped to have "cordial and frank discussions" ahead of the trip beginning when asked about the content of the talks. During a December 29 meeting with Prime Minister of Japan Eisaku Satō, Humphrey asked the latter for support on achieving peace in the Vietnam War and said it was a showing of strength that the United States wanted a peaceful ending rather than a display of weakness.
Humphrey began a European tour in late-March 1967 to mend frazzled relations and indicated that he was "ready to explain and ready to listen." On April 2, 1967, Vice President Humphrey met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson. Ahead of the meeting, Humphrey said they would discuss multiple topics including the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, European events, Atlantic alliance strengthening, and "the situation in the Far East". White House Press Secretary George Christian said five days later that he had received reports from Vice President Humphrey indicating his tour of the European countries was "very constructive" and said President Johnson was interested in the report as well. While Humphrey was in Florence, Italy on April 1, 1967, 23-year-old Giulio Stocchi threw eggs at the Vice President and missed. He was seized by American bodyguards who turned him in to Italian officers. In Brussels, Belgium on April 9, demonstrators led by communists threw rotten eggs and fruits at Vice President Humphrey's car, also hitting several of his bodyguards. In late-December 1967, Vice President Humphrey began touring Africa.
1968 presidential election
As 1968 began, it looked as if President Johnson, despite the rapidly decreasing approval rating of his Vietnam War policies, would easily win the Democratic nomination for a second time. Humphrey was widely expected to remain Johnson's running mate for reelection in 1968. Johnson was challenged by Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform. With the backing of out-of-state anti-war college students and activists while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy, who was not expected to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, nearly defeated Johnson, finishing with a surprising 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49%. A few days after the New Hampshire primary, after months of contemplation and originally intending to support Johnson's bid for reelection, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York also entered the race on an anti-war platform. On March 31, 1968, a week before the Wisconsin primary, where polls showed a strong standing for McCarthy, President Johnson stunned the nation by withdrawing from his race for a second full term.
Following the announcement from Johnson, Humphrey announced his presidential candidacy on April 27, 1968. Declaring his candidacy in a speech in Washington, DC alongside Senators Fred Harris of Oklahoma and Walter Mondale of Minnesota (who both served as the co-chairs to his campaign), Humphrey stated:
Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.
Also in his speech, Humphrey supported President Johnson's Vietnam initiative he proposed during his address to the nation four weeks earlier; partially halting the bombings in North Vietnam, while sending an additional 13,500 troops and increasing the Department of Defense's budget by 4% over the next fiscal year. Later in the campaign, Humphrey opposed a proposal by Senators McCarthy and George McGovern of South Dakota to the Democratic Convention's Policy Committee, calling for an immediate end to the bombings in Vietnam, an early withdrawal of troops and setting talks for a coalition government with the Viet Cong.
Many people saw Humphrey as Johnson's stand-in; he won major backing from the nation's labor unions and other Democratic groups troubled by young antiwar protesters and the social unrest around the nation. A group of British journalists wrote that Humphrey, despite his liberal record on civil rights and support for a nuclear test-ban treaty, "had turned into an arch-apologist for the war, who was given to trotting around Vietnam looking more than a little silly in olive-drab fatigues and a forage cap. The man whose name had been a by-word in the South for softness toward Negroes had taken to lecturing black groups ... the wild-eyed reformer had become the natural champion of every conservative element in the Democratic Party." Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states by gaining the support of Democratic officeholders who were elected delegates to the Democratic Convention. By June, McCarthy won in Oregon and Pennsylvania, while Kennedy had won in Indiana and Nebraska, though Humphrey was the front runner as he led the delegate count. The California primary was crucial for Kennedy's campaign, as a McCarthy victory would have prevented Kennedy from reaching the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. On June 4, 1968, Kennedy defeated McCarthy by less than 4% in the winner-take-all California primary. But the nation was shocked yet again when Senator Kennedy was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. After the assassination of Kennedy, Humphrey suspended his campaign for two weeks.
Chicago riots and party fallout
Humphrey did not enter any of the 13 state primary elections, but won the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for antiwar candidates. The delegates defeated the peace plank by 1,567 to 1,041. Humphrey selected as his running mate Senator Ed Muskie of Maine. Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheatre convention hall, and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other antiwar candidates. Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago police attacked and beat these protesters, most of them young college students, which amplified the growing feelings of unrest among the public.
Humphrey's inaction during these incidents, Johnson's and Daley's behind-the-scenes maneuvers, public backlash against Humphrey's winning the nomination without entering a single primary, and Humphrey's refusal to meet McCarthy halfway on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's refusal to fully endorse him, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic Party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of Johnson's unpopularity, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that year, all contributed to his loss to former Vice President Nixon. Nevertheless, as Wallace lost support among white union members, Humphrey regained strength and the final polls showed a close race. Humphrey reversed his Vietnam policy, called for peace talks, and won back some of the antiwar Democrats.
Nixon won the electoral college and the election. Humphrey lost the popular vote by less than one percent, with 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839) for Humphrey, and 13.5% (9,901,118) for Wallace. Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes, Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried five states and 46 electoral votes. In his concession speech, Humphrey said, "I have done my best. I have lost; Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will."
Post-Vice Presidency (1969–1978)
Teaching and return to the Senate
After leaving the Vice Presidency, Humphrey taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and served as chairman of the board of consultants at the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
On February 11, 1969, Humphrey met privately with Mayor Richard J. Daley and denied ever being "at war" with Daley during a press conference later in the day. In March, Humphrey declined answering questions on the Johnson administration being either involved or privy to the cessation of bombing of the north in Vietnam during an interview on Issues and Answers. At a press conference on June 2, 1969, Humphrey backed Nixon's peace efforts, dismissing the notion that he was not seeking an end to the war. In early July, Humphrey traveled to Finland for a private visit. Later that month, Humphrey returned to Washington after visiting Europe, a week after McCarthy declared he would not seek reelection, Humphrey declining to comment amid speculation he intended to return to the Senate. During the fall, Humphrey arranged to meet with President Nixon through United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Humphrey saying the day after the meeting that President Nixon had "expressed his appreciation on my attitude to his effort on Vietnam." On August 3, Humphrey said that Russia was buying time to develop ballistic missile warheads to catch up with the United States and that security was the "overriding concern" of the Soviet Union. Days later, Humphrey repudiated efforts against President Nixon's anti-ballistic missile system: "I have a feeling that they [opponents of the ABM] were off chasing rabbits when a tiger is loose." During October, Humphrey spoke before the AFL-CIO convention delegates, charging President Nixon's economic policies with "putting Americans out of work without slowing inflation." On October 10, Humphrey stated his support for Nixon's policies in Vietnam and that he believed "the worst thing that we can do is to try to undermine the efforts of the President." At a December 21 press conference, Humphrey said President Nixon was a participant in the "politics of polarization" and could not seek unity on one hand but have divisive agents on the other. On December 26, Humphrey responded to a claim from former President Johnson that Humphrey had been cost the election by his own call for a stop to North Vietnam bombing, saying he did what he "thought was right and responsible at Salt Lake City."
On January 4, 1970, Humphrey said the United States should cease tests of nuclear weapons during the continued conversations for potential strategic arms limitations between the United States and the Soviet Union while speaking to the National Retail Furniture association at the Palmer House. In February, Humphrey predicted Nixon would withdraw 75,000 or more troops prior to the year's midterm elections and the main issue would be the economy during an interview: "The issue of 1970 is the economy. Some of my fellow Democrats don't believe this. But this is a fact." On February 23, Humphrey disclosed his recommendation to Larry O'Brien for the latter to return to being Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a Humphrey spokesman reporting that Humphrey wanted a quick settlement to the issue of the DNC chairmanship. Solberg wrote of President Nixon's April 1970 Cambodian Campaign as having done away with Humphrey's hopes that the war be taken out of political context. In May, Humphrey pledged to do all that he was capable of to provide additional war planes to Israel and stress the issue to American leaders. Amid an August 11 address to the American Bar Association luncheon meeting, Humphrey called for liberals to cease defending campus radicals and militants and align with law and order.
Humphrey had not planned to return to political life, but an unexpected opportunity changed his mind. McCarthy, who was up for reelection in 1970, realized that he had only a slim chance of winning even re-nomination for the Minnesota seat because he had angered his party by opposing Johnson and Humphrey for the 1968 presidential nomination, and declined to run. Humphrey won the nomination, defeated Republican Congressman Clark MacGregor, and returned to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1971. Ahead of resuming his senatorial duties, Humphrey had a November 16, 1970 White House meeting with President Nixon as part of a group of newly elected senators invited to meet with the president. He was reelected in 1976, and remained in office until his death. In a rarity in politics, Humphrey held both Senate seats from his state (Class I and Class II) at different times. During his return to the Senate he served in the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and a portion of the 95th Congress. He served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in the 94th Congress.
Fourth Senate term
L. Edward Purcell wrote that upon returning to the Senate, Humphrey found himself "again a lowly junior senator with no seniority" and that he resolved to create credibility in the eyes of liberals.
On May 3, 1971, after the Americans for Democratic Action adopted a resolution demanding President Nixon's impeachment, Humphrey commented that they were acting "more out of emotion and passion than reason and prudent judgment" and that the request was irresponsible. On May 21, Humphrey said ending hunger and malnutrition in the U.S. was "a moral obligation" during a speech to International Food Service Manufacturers Association members at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. In June, Humphrey delivered the commencement address at the University of Bridgeport and days later said that he believed Nixon was interested in seeing a peaceful end to the Vietnam War "as badly as any senator or anybody else." On July 14, while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control, Humphrey proposed amending the defense procurement bill to place in escrow all funds for creation and usage of multiple‐missile warheads in the midst of continued arms limitations talks. Humphrey said members of the Nixon administration needed to remember "when they talk of a tough negotiating position, they are going to get a tough response." On September 6, Humphrey rebuked the Nixon administration's wage price freeze, saying it was based on trickle-down policies and advocating "percolate up" as a replacement, while speaking at a United Rubber Workers gathering. On October 26, Humphrey stated his support for removing barriers to voting registration and authorizing students to establish voting residences in their college communities, rebuking the refusal of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell the previous month to take a role in shaping voter registration laws as applicable to new voters. On December 24, 1971, Humphrey accused the Nixon administration of turning its back on the impoverished in the rural parts of the United States, citing few implementations of the relief recommendations of the 1967 National Advisory Commission; in another statement he said only 3 of the 150 recommendations had been implemented. On December 27, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was responsible for an escalation of the Southeast Asia war and requested complete cessation of North Vietnam bombing while responding to antiwar protestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In January 1972, Humphrey stated the U.S. would be out of the Vietnam War by that point had he been elected President, saying Nixon was taking longer to withdraw American troops from the country than it took to defeat Adolf Hitler. On May 20, Humphrey said Nixon's proposal to limit schoolchildren busing was "insufficient in the amount of aid needed for our children, deceptive to the American people, and insensitive to the laws and the Constitution of this nation", in a reversal of his prior stance, while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During a May 30 appearance in Burbank, California, Humphrey stated his support for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam despite an invasion by North Vietnam.
In January 1973, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was plotting to eliminate a school milk program in the upcoming fiscal year budget during a telephone interview. On February 18, 1973, Humphrey said the Middle East could possibly usher in peace following the Vietnam War ending along with American troops withdrawing from Indochina during an appearance at the New York Hilton. In August 1973, Humphrey called on Nixon to schedule a meeting with nations exporting and importing foods as part of an effort to both create a worldwide policy on food and do away with food hoarding. After Nixon's dismissal of Archibald Cox, Humphrey said he found "the whole situation entirely depressing." Three days after Cox's dismissal, during a speech to the AFL-CIO convention on October 23, Humphrey declined to state his position on whether Nixon should be impeached, citing that his congressional position would likely cause him to have to play a role in determining Nixon's fate. On December 21, Humphrey disclosed his request of federal tax deductions of US$199,153 for the donation of his vice presidential papers to the Minnesota State Historical Society.
In early January 1974, Humphrey checked into the Bethesda Naval Hospital for tests regarding a minute tumor of the bladder. His physician Edgar Berman said the next day that Humphrey "looks fine and feels fine" and was expected to leave early the following week. In an interview conducted on March 29, 1974, Humphrey concurred with Senator Mike Mansfield's assessment from the prior day that the House of Representatives had enough votes to impeach Nixon. Humphrey was reportedly pleased by Nixon's resignation.
In an April 1975 news conference at the spring education conference of the United Federation of Teachers, Humphrey cited the need for a national department of education, a national education trust fund, and a federal government provision for a third of America's educational expenses. He said the Ford administration had no educational policy and noted the United States was the only industrialized country without a separate national education department. In May, Humphrey testified at the trial of his former campaign manager Jack L. Chestnut, admitting that as a candidate he sought the support of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., but saying he was not privy to the illegal contributions Chestnut was accused of taking from the organization. Later that month, Humphrey was one of 19 senators to originate a letter stating the expectation of 75 senators that Ford would submit a foreign aid request to Congress meeting the "urgent military and economic needs" of Israel. In August, after the United States Court of Appeals ruled that Ford had no authority to continue levying fees of $2 a barrel on imported oil, Humphrey hailed the decision as "the best news we've heard on the inflation front in a long time" and urged Ford to accept the decision because the price reduction on oil and oil‐related products would benefit the national economy. In October, after Sara Jane Moore's assassination attempt on Ford, Humphrey joined former presidential candidates Barry Goldwater, Edmund Muskie, and George McGovern in urging Ford and other presidential candidates to restrain their campaigning the following year to prevent future attempts on their lives.
In October 1976, Humphrey was admitted to a hospital for the removal of a cancerous bladder, predicted his victory in his reelection bid and advocated for members of his party to launch efforts to increase voter turnout upon his release.
1972 presidential election
On November 4, 1970, shortly after being reelected to the Senate, Humphrey stated his intention to take on the role of a "harmonizer" within the Democratic Party to minimize the possibility of potential presidential candidates within the party lambasting each other prior to deciding to run in the then-upcoming election, dismissing that he was an active candidate at that time. In December 1971, Humphrey made his second trip to New Jersey in under a month, talking with a plurality of county leaders at the Robert Treat Hotel: "I told them I wanted their support. I said I'd rather work with them than against them."
In 1972, Humphrey once again ran for the Democratic nomination for president, announcing his candidacy on January 10, 1972 during a twenty-minute speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time of the announcement, Humphrey said he was running on a platform of the removal of troops from Vietnam and a revitalization of the United States economy. He drew upon continuing support from organized labor and the African-American and Jewish communities, but remained unpopular with college students because of his association with the Vietnam War, even though he had altered his position in the years since his 1968 defeat. Humphrey initially planned to skip the primaries, as he had in 1968. Even after he revised this strategy he still stayed out of New Hampshire, a decision that allowed McGovern to emerge as the leading challenger to Muskie in that state. Humphrey did win some primaries, including those in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, but was defeated by McGovern in several others, including the crucial California primary. Humphrey also was out-organized by McGovern in caucus states and was trailing in delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. His hopes rested on challenges to the credentials of some of the McGovern delegates. For example, the Humphrey forces argued that the winner-take-all rule for the California primary violated procedural reforms intended to produce a better reflection of the popular vote, the reason that the Illinois delegation was bounced. The effort failed, as several votes on delegate credentials went McGovern's way, guaranteeing his victory.
1976 presidential election
On April 22, 1974, Humphrey said that he would not enter the upcoming Democratic presidential primary for the 1976 Presidential election. Humphrey said at the time that he was urging fellow Senator and Minnesotan Walter Mondale to run, despite believing that Ted Kennedy would enter the race as well. Leading up to the election cycle, Humphrey also said, "Here's a time in my life when I appear to have more support than at any other time in my life. But it's too financially, politically, and physically debilitating – and I'm just not going to do it." In December 1975, a Gallup poll was released showing Humphrey and Ronald Reagan as the leading Democratic and Republican candidates for the following year's presidential election.
On April 12, 1976, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party State Senator James P. Dugan said the selection of a majority of uncommitted delegates could be interpreted as a victory for Humphrey, who had indicated his availability as a presidential candidate for the convention. Humphrey announced his choice to not enter the New Jersey primary nor authorize any committees to work to support him during an April 29, 1976 appearance in the Senate Caucus Room. Even after Jimmy Carter had won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, many still wanted Humphrey to announce his availability for a draft. However, he did not do so, and Carter easily secured the nomination on the first round of balloting. Humphrey had learned that he had terminal cancer, prompting him to sit the race out.
Humphrey attended the November 17, 1976 meeting between President-elect Carter and Democratic congressional leaders in which Carter sought out support for a proposal to have the president's power to reorganize the government reinstated with potential to be vetoed by Congress.
Fifth Senate term
Humphrey attended the May 3, 1977 White House meeting on legislative priorities. Humphrey told President Carter that the U.S. would enter a period of high unemployment without an economic stimulus and noted that in "every period in our history, a rise in unemployment has been accompanied by a rise in inflation". Humphrey stated a preventative health care program would be the only way for the Carter administration to not have to fund soaring health costs. In July 1977, after the Senate began debating approval for funding of the neutron bomb, Humphrey stated that the White House had agreed to release the impact statement, a requirement for Congressional funding of a new weapon.
Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate (1977–1978)
In 1974, along with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, Humphrey authored the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, the first attempt at full employment legislation. The original bill proposed to guarantee full employment to all citizens over 16 and set up a permanent system of public jobs to meet that goal. A watered-down version called the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act passed the House and Senate in 1978. It set the goal of 4 percent unemployment and 3 percent inflation and instructed the Federal Reserve Board to try to produce those goals when making policy decisions.
Humphrey ran for Majority Leader after the 1976 election but lost to Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The Senate honored Humphrey by creating the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate for him. On August 16, 1977, Humphrey revealed he was suffering from terminal bladder cancer. On October 25 of that year, he addressed the Senate, and on November 3, Humphrey became the first person other than a member of the House or the President of the United States to address the House of Representatives in session. President Carter honored him by giving him command of Air Force One for his final trip to Washington on October 23. One of Humphrey's final speeches contained the lines "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped", which is sometimes described as the "liberals' mantra".
Death and funeral
Humphrey spent his last weeks calling old political acquaintances. One call was to Richard Nixon inviting him to his upcoming funeral, which Nixon accepted. Staying in the hospital, Humphrey went from room to room, cheering up other patients by telling them jokes and listening to them. On January 13, 1978, he died of bladder cancer at his home in Waverly, Minnesota, at the age of 66.
Humphrey's body lay in state in the rotundas of the U.S. Capitol and the Minnesota State Capitol before being interred at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. His passing overshadowed the death of his colleague from Montana, Senator Lee Metcalf, who had died the day before Humphrey. Old friends and opponents of Humphrey, from Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon to President Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale, paid their final respects. "He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die", said Mondale.
Humphrey's wife Muriel was appointed by Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich to serve in the U.S. Senate until a special election to fill the term was held; she did not seek election to finish her husband's term in office. In 1981 she married Max Brown and took the name Muriel Humphrey Brown. Upon her death in 1998 she was interred next to Humphrey at Lakewood Cemetery.
Honors and legacy
In 1965, Humphrey was made an Honorary Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically African American fraternity.
In 1978, Humphrey received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
He was awarded posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal on June 13, 1979 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 52¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.
There is a statue of him in front of the Minneapolis City Hall.
Humphrey's legacy is bolstered by his early leadership in civil rights, and undermined by his long support of the Vietnam War. His leading biographer Arnold A. Offner says he was "the most successful legislator in the nation's history and a powerful voice for equal justice for all." Offner writes that Humphrey was:
A major force for nearly every important liberal policy initiative....putting civil rights on his party's and the nation's agenda [in 1948] for decades to come. As senator he proposed legislation to effect national health insurance, for aid to poor nations, immigration and income tax reform, a Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the path breaking 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty....[He provided] masterful stewardship of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.
While acknowledging his accomplishments, some historians emphasize that Humphrey was "a flawed, and not entirely likeable, figure who talked too much and neglected his family while pursuing a politics of compromise that owed as much to his vaunting personal ambition as to political pragmatism."
Namesakes
Fellowship
The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which fosters an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding throughout the world.
Buildings and institutions
The Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
The former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome domed stadium in Minneapolis which was home to the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League and the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and its building, the Hubert H. Humphrey Center (formerly Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; changed in January 2011)
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Bridge carrying FL S.R. 520 over the Indian River Lagoon between Cocoa and Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida
The Hubert H. Humphrey Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in Los Angeles, California.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Recreation Center of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in Pacoima, CA.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Auditorium at Doland High School in Doland, South Dakota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Waverly, Minnesota
The Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Portrayals
Franklin Cover in the 1982 television film A Woman Called Golda.
Bradley Whitford in the 2016 television film All the Way.
Doug McKeon in the 2017 film LBJ.
Electoral history
See also
Politics of Minnesota
Humphrey's son, Hubert H. Humphrey III and grandson Buck Humphrey are also Minnesotan politicians.
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
Humphrey objection
Notes
References
Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979. A physician's personal account of his friendship with Humphrey from 1957 until his death in 1978.
Boomhower, Ray E. "Fighting the Good Fight: John Bartlow Martin and Hubert Humphrey's 1968 Presidential Campaign." Indiana Magazine of History (2020) 116#1 pp 1-29. online
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Chester, Lewis, Hodgson, Godfrey, Page, Bruce. An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. online
Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.
Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.
Engelmayer, Sheldon D., and Robert J. Wagman. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. (1978). online
Garrettson, Charles L. III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election That Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993). online
Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, a primary source. online
Johns, Andrew L. The Price of Loyalty: Hubert Humphrey's Vietnam Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).
Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. online
Offner, Arnold, "Hubert Humphrey: The Conscience of the Country," New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Pomper, Gerald. "The nomination of Hubert Humphrey for vice-president." Journal of Politics 28.3 (1966): 639-659. online
Reichard, Gary W. "Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey" Minnesota History 56#2 (1998), pp. 50-67 online
Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York : Norton, 1984. online
Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 352.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. (Reprint)
External links
University of Texas biography
Hubert H. Humphrey Papers are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Humphrey's complete speech texts and a broad sample of his speech sound recordings have been digitzed by the Minnesota Historical Society under a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1964 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Account of 1948 Presidential campaign – includes text of Humphrey's speech at the Democratic National Convention
Oral History Interviews with Hubert H. Humphrey, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Information on Humphrey's thought and influence, including quotations from his speeches and writings.
Hubert H. Humphrey at the Macedonian Baptist Church, San Francisco, May 23, 1972 Photographs by Bruce Jackson of Humphrey on his last campaign.
Radio airchecks/recordings of Hubert H. Humphrey from 1946 to 1978 including interviews, radio appearances, newscasts, 1968 election concession speech, etc.
"Hubert Humphrey, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
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American political party founders | false | [
"The 1968 United States presidential election in Connecticut took place on November 5, 1968, as part of the 1968 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.\n\nConnecticut voted for the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, over the Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon of New York and American Independent candidate, Southern populist Governor George Wallace of Alabama. Humphrey's running mate was Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, while Nixon ran with Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland and Wallace's running mate was Curtis LeMay of California.\n\nHumphrey carried Connecticut by a fair margin of 5.16%. This would be the last election until 1992 in which Connecticut voted for a Democrat, though it has not voted against them since that election.\n\nAs of 2020, this was the most recent presidential election in which the Democratic nominee carried the towns of Prospect and Watertown.\n\nResults\n\nSee also\n United States presidential elections in Connecticut\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nConnecticut\n1968 Connecticut elections\n1968",
"The 1968 United States presidential election in Arizona took place on November 5, 1968. All fifty states and the District of Columbia were part of the 1968 United States presidential election. State voters chose five electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.\n\nArizona was won by the Republican nominees, Richard Nixon of New York and his running mate Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland. Nixon and Agnew defeated the Democratic nominees, Incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and his running mate U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. \n\nNixon carried the state with 54.78% of the vote to Humphrey's 35.02%, a victory margin of 19.76%.\n\nStatewide Results\n\nResults by county\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n1968\nArizona"
]
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| C_c69d1ec09c124f158fcdca0296f5b904_1 | who were the protesters? | 2 | Who were the protesters in the Chicago riots? | Hubert Humphrey | Humphrey and his running mate, Ed Muskie, who had not entered any of the 13 state primary elections, went on to win the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, Illinois even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for anti-war candidates, the delegates had defeated the peace plank by 1,567 3/4 to 1,041 1/4 . Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheater convention hall (closed 1999), and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by the thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other "anti-war" candidates. These protesters - most of them young college students - were attacked and beaten on live television by Chicago police, actions which merely amplified the growing feelings of unrest in the general public. Humphrey's inaction during these activities along with President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's behind the scenes convention influencing, public backlash from securing the presidential nomination without entering a single primary, as well as Humphrey refusal to meet McCarthy half way on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's lack of full endorsement of Humphrey, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of the unpopularity of Johnson, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans when both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated during the election year, were all contributing factors that caused him to eventually lose the election to former Vice President Nixon. Although he lost the election by less than 1% of the popular vote, 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839 votes) for Humphrey, with 13.5% (9,901,118 votes) for George Wallace, Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes. Richard Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried 5 states in the South and 46 electoral votes (270 were needed to win). In his concession speech, Humphrey said: "I have done my best. I have lost, Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will." CANNOTANSWER | antiwar demonstrators, | Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. As a senator he was a major leader of modern liberalism in the United States. As President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, he supported the controversial Vietnam War. An intensely divided Democratic Party nominated him in the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.
Born in Wallace, South Dakota, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota. In 1943, he became a professor of political science at Macalester College and ran a failed campaign for mayor of Minneapolis. He helped found the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) in 1944; the next year he was elected mayor of Minneapolis, serving until 1948 and co-founding the liberal anti-communist group Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and successfully advocated for the inclusion of a proposal to end racial segregation in the 1948 Democratic National Convention's party platform. He was a leader of American liberalism, especially in supporting civil rights. Liberals split over his strong support for the Vietnam War.
Humphrey served three terms in the Senate from 1949 to 1964, and was the Senate Majority Whip for the last four years of his tenure. During this time, he was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the first initiative to create the Peace Corps, and chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament. He unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 1952 and 1960. After Lyndon B. Johnson acceded to the presidency, he chose Humphrey as his running mate, and the Democratic ticket won a landslide victory in the 1964 election.
In March 1968, Johnson made his surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, and Humphrey launched his campaign for the presidency. Loyal to the Johnson administration's policies on the Vietnam War, he received opposition from many within his own party and avoided the primaries to focus on winning the delegates of non-primary states at the Democratic Convention. His delegate strategy succeeded in clinching the nomination, and he chose Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. In the general election, he nearly matched Nixon's tally in the popular vote but lost the electoral vote by a wide margin. After the defeat, he returned to the Senate and served from 1971 until his death in 1978. From 1977 to 1979, he served as Deputy President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
Early life and education
Humphrey was born in a room over his father's drugstore in Wallace, South Dakota. He was the son of Ragnild Kristine Sannes (1883–1973), a Norwegian immigrant, and Hubert Horatio Humphrey Sr. (1882–1949). Humphrey spent most of his youth in Doland, South Dakota, on the Dakota prairie; the town's population was about 600. His father was a licensed pharmacist and merchant who served as mayor and a town council member. The father also served briefly in the South Dakota state legislature and was a South Dakota delegate to the 1944 and 1948 Democratic National Conventions. In the late 1920s, a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both banks in the town closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his store open.
After his son graduated from Doland's high school, Hubert Sr. left Doland and opened a new drugstore in the larger town of Huron, South Dakota (population 11,000), where he hoped to improve his fortunes. Because of the family's financial struggles, Humphrey had to leave the University of Minnesota after just one year. He earned a pharmacist's license from the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado (completing a two-year licensure program in just six months), and helped his father run his store from 1931 to 1937. Both father and son were innovative in finding ways to attract customers: "to supplement their business, the Humphreys had become manufacturers ... of patent medicines for both hogs and humans. A sign featuring a wooden pig was hung over the drugstore to tell the public about this unusual service. Farmers got the message, and it was Humphrey's that became known as the farmer's drugstore." One biographer noted, "while Hubert Jr. minded the store and stirred the concoctions in the basement, Hubert Sr. went on the road selling 'Humphrey's BTV' (Body Tone Veterinary), a mineral supplement and dewormer for hogs, and 'Humphrey's Chest Oil' and 'Humphrey's Sniffles' for two-legged sufferers." Humphrey later wrote, "we made 'Humphrey's Sniffles', a substitute for Vick's Nose Drops. I felt ours were better. Vick's used mineral oil, which is not absorbent, and we used a vegetable-oil base, which was. I added benzocaine, a local anesthetic, so that even if the sniffles didn't get better, you felt it less." The various "Humphrey cures ... worked well enough and constituted an important part of the family income ... the farmers that bought the medicines were good customers." Over time Humphrey's Drug Store became a profitable enterprise and the family again prospered. While living in Huron, Humphrey regularly attended Huron's largest Methodist church and became scoutmaster of the church's Boy Scout Troop 6. He "started basketball games in the church basement ... although his scouts had no money for camp in 1931, Hubert found a way in the worst of that summer's dust-storm grit, grasshoppers, and depression to lead an overnight [outing]."
Humphrey did not enjoy working as a pharmacist, and his dream remained to earn a doctorate in political science and become a college professor. His unhappiness was manifested in "stomach pains and fainting spells", though doctors could find nothing wrong with him. In August 1937, he told his father that he wanted to return to the University of Minnesota. Hubert Sr. tried to convince his son not to leave by offering him a full partnership in the store, but Hubert Jr. refused and told his father "how depressed I was, almost physically ill from the work, the dust storms, the conflict between my desire to do something and be somebody and my loyalty to him ... he replied 'Hubert, if you aren't happy, then you ought to do something about it'." Humphrey returned to the University of Minnesota in 1937 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. He was a member of Phi Delta Chi, a pharmacy fraternity. He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. One of his classmates was Russell B. Long, a future U.S. Senator from Louisiana.
He then became an instructor and doctoral student at the University of Minnesota from 1940 to 1941 (joining the American Federation of Teachers), and was a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Humphrey was a star on the university's debate team; one of his teammates was future Minnesota Governor and US Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. In the 1940 presidential campaign Humphrey and future University of Minnesota president Malcolm Moos debated the merits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, and Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee, on a Minneapolis radio station. Humphrey supported Roosevelt. Humphrey soon became active in Minneapolis politics, and as a result never finished his PhD.
Marriage and early career
In 1934, Humphrey began dating Muriel Buck, a bookkeeper and graduate of local Huron College. They were married from 1936 until Humphrey's death nearly 42 years later. They had four children: Nancy Faye, Hubert Horatio III, Robert Andrew, and Douglas Sannes. Money was an issue. One biographer noted, "For much of his life he was short of money to live on, and his relentless drive to attain the White House seemed at times like one long, losing struggle to raise enough campaign funds to get there." To help boost his salary, Humphrey frequently took paid outside speaking engagements. Through most of his years as a U.S. senator and vice president, he lived in a middle-class suburban housing development in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In 1958, the Humphreys used their savings and his speaking fees to build a lakefront home in Waverly, Minnesota, about 40 miles west of Minneapolis.
During World War II, Humphrey tried three times to join the armed forces but failed. His first two attempts were to join the Navy, first as a commissioned officer and then as an enlisted man. He was rejected both times for color blindness. He then tried to enlist in the Army in December 1944 but failed the physical exam because of a double hernia, color blindness, and calcification of the lungs. Despite his attempts to join the military, one biographer would note that "all through his political life, Humphrey was dogged by the charge that he was a draft dodger" during the war.
Humphrey led various wartime government agencies and worked as a college instructor. In 1942, he was the state director of new production training and reemployment and chief of the Minnesota war service program. In 1943 he was the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. From 1943 to 1944, Humphrey was a professor of political science at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he headed the university's recently created international debate department, which focused on the international politics of World War II and the creation of the United Nations. After leaving Macalester in the spring of 1944, Humphrey worked as a news commentator for a Minneapolis radio station until 1945.
In 1943, Humphrey made his first run for elective office, for Mayor of Minneapolis. He lost, but his poorly funded campaign still captured over 47% of the vote. In 1944, Humphrey was one of the key players in the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties of Minnesota to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He also worked on President Roosevelt's 1944 reelection campaign. When Minnesota Communists tried to seize control of the new party in 1945, Humphrey became an engaged anticommunist and led the successful fight to oust the Communists from the DFL.
After the war, he again ran for mayor of Minneapolis; this time, he won the election with 61% of the vote. As mayor, he helped ensure the appointment of a friend and previous neighbor, Edwin Ryan, as head of the police department, as he needed a "police chief whose integrity and loyalty would be above reproach." Though they had differing views of labor unions, Ryan and Humphrey worked together to crack down on crime in Minneapolis. Humphrey told Ryan, "I want this town cleaned up and I mean I want it cleaned up now, not a year from now or a month from now, right now", and "You take care of the law enforcement. I'll take care of the politics." Humphrey served as mayor from 1945 to 1948, winning reelection in 1947 by the largest margin in the city's history to that time. Humphrey gained national fame by becoming one of the founders of the liberal anticommunist Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), and he served as chairman from 1949 to 1950. He also reformed the Minneapolis police force. The city had been named the "anti-Semitism capital" of the country, and its small African-American population also faced discrimination. Humphrey's mayoralty is noted for his efforts to fight all forms of bigotry. He formed the Council on Human Relations and established a municipal version of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, making Minneapolis one of only a few cities in the United States to prohibit racial discrimination in the workforce. Humphrey and his publicists were proud that the Council on Human Relations brought together individuals of varying ideologies. In 1960, Humphrey told journalist Theodore H. White, "I was mayor once, in Minneapolis ... a mayor is a fine job, it's the best job there is between being a governor and being the President."
1948 Democratic National Convention
The Democratic Party of 1948 was split between those, mainly Northerners, who thought the federal government should actively protect civil rights for racial minorities, and those, mainly Southerners, who believed that states should be able to enforce traditional racial segregation within their borders.
At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the party platform reflected the division by containing only platitudes supporting civil rights. The incumbent president, Harry S. Truman, had shelved most of his 1946 Commission on Civil Rights's recommendations to avoid angering Southern Democrats. But Humphrey had written in The Progressive magazine, "The Democratic Party must lead the fight for every principle in the report. It is all or nothing."
A diverse coalition opposed the convention's tepid civil rights platform, including anticommunist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John F. Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party. They proposed adding a "minority plank" to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to more aggressive opposition to racial segregation. The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. Also strongly backing the minority plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh. Although seen as conservatives, the urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, with only comparatively small losses from Southern Democrats. Although many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, except for the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney.
Despite Truman's aides' aggressive pressure to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey spoke for the minority plank. In a renowned speech, Humphrey passionately told the Convention, "To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey and his allies succeeded: the convention adopted the pro-civil-rights plank by a vote of 651 to 582.
After the convention's vote, the Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation walked out of the hall. Many Southern Democrats were so enraged at this affront to their "way of life" that they formed the Dixiecrat party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The Dixiecrats' goal was to take Southern states away from Truman and thus cause his defeat. They reasoned that after such a defeat, the national Democratic Party would never again aggressively pursue a pro-civil rights agenda. The move backfired: although the civil rights plank cost Truman the Dixiecrats' support, it gained him many votes from blacks, especially in large northern cities. As a result, Truman won an upset victory over his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. The result demonstrated that the Democratic Party could win presidential elections without the "Solid South" and weakened Southern Democrats. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has written that Humphrey probably did more to get Truman elected in 1948 than anyone other than Truman himself.
United States Senate (1949–1964)
Humphrey was elected to the United States Senate in 1948 on the DFL ticket, defeating James M. Shields in the DFL primary with 89% of the vote, and unseating incumbent Republican Joseph H. Ball in the general election with 60% of the vote. He took office on January 3, 1949, becoming the first Democrat elected senator from Minnesota since before the Civil War. Humphrey wrote that the victory heightened his sense of self, as he had beaten the odds of defeating a Republican with statewide support. Humphrey's father died that year, and Humphrey stopped using the "Jr." suffix on his name. He was reelected in 1954 and 1960. His colleagues selected him as majority whip in 1961, a position he held until he left the Senate on December 29, 1964, to assume the vice presidency. Humphrey served from the 81st to the 87th sessions of Congress, and in a portion of the 88th Congress.
Initially, Humphrey's support of civil rights led to his being ostracized by Southern Democrats, who dominated Senate leadership positions and wanted to punish him for proposing the civil rights platform at the 1948 Convention. Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia, a leader of Southern Democrats, once remarked to other Senators as Humphrey walked by, "Can you imagine the people of Minnesota sending that damn fool down here to represent them?" Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground; his integrity, passion and eloquence eventually earned him the respect of even most of the Southerners. The Southerners were also more inclined to accept Humphrey after he became a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Humphrey became known for his advocacy of liberal causes (such as civil rights, arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid), and for his long and witty speeches.
Humphrey was a liberal leader who fought to uphold Truman's veto of the McCarran Act of 1950. The bill was designed to suppress the American Communist Party. With a small group of liberals he supported the Kilgore substitute that would allow the president to lock up subversives, without trial, in a time of national emergency. The model was the internment of West Coast Japanese in 1942. The goal was to split the McCarren coalition. For years critics charged that Humphrey supported concentration camps. The ploy failed to stop the new law; the Senate voted 57 to 10 to overturn Truman's veto. In 1954 he proposed to make membership in the Communist Party a felony. It was another ploy to derail a bill that would hurt labor unions. Humphrey's proposal did not pass.
Humphrey was the author of the first humane slaughter bill introduced in the U.S. Congress and chief Senate sponsor of the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958.
Humphrey chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament (84th and 85th Congresses). In February 1960 he introduced a bill to establish a National Peace Agency. With another former pharmacist, Representative Carl Durham, Humphrey cosponsored the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, defining two specific categories for medications, legend (prescription) and over-the-counter (OTC).
As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act that year. He was a lead author of its text, alongside Senate Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.
While President John F. Kennedy is often credited for creating the Peace Corps, Humphrey introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years before Kennedy's University of Michigan speech. A trio of journalists wrote of Humphrey in 1969 that "few men in American politics have achieved so much of lasting significance. It was Humphrey, not Senator [Everett] Dirksen, who played the crucial part in the complex parliamentary games that were needed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was Humphrey, not John Kennedy, who first proposed the Peace Corps. The Food for Peace program was Humphrey's idea, and so was Medicare, passed sixteen years after he first proposed it. He worked for Federal aid to education from 1949, and for a nuclear-test ban treaty from 1956. These are the solid monuments of twenty years of effective work for liberal causes in the Senate." President Johnson once said that "Most Senators are minnows ... Hubert Humphrey is among the whales."
In his autobiography, The Education of a Public Man, Humphrey wrote:
There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought the idea was silly and unworkable. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.
On April 9, 1950, Humphrey predicted that President Truman would sign a $4 billion housing bill and charge Republicans with having removed the bill's main middle-income benefits during Truman's tours of the Midwest and Northwest the following month.
On January 7, 1951, Humphrey joined Senator Paul Douglas in calling for an $80 billion federal budget to combat Communist aggression along with a stiff tax increase to prevent borrowing.
In a January 1951 letter to President Truman, Humphrey wrote of the necessity of a commission akin to the Fair Employment Practices Commission that would be used to end discrimination in defense industries and predicted that establishing such a commission by executive order would be met with high approval by Americans.
On June 18, 1953, Humphrey introduced a resolution calling for the US to urge free elections in Germany in response to the anti-Communist riots in East Berlin.
In December 1958, after receiving a message from Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to the Soviet Union, Humphrey returned insisting that the message was not negative toward America. In February 1959, Humphrey said American newspapers should have ignored Khrushchev's comments calling him a purveyor of fairy tales. In a September address to the National Stationery and Office Equipment Association, Humphrey called for further inspection of Khrushchev's "live and let live" doctrine and maintained the Cold War could be won by using American "weapons of peace".
In June 1963, Humphrey accompanied his longtime friend labor leader Walter Reuther on a trip to Harpsund, the Swedish Prime Minister's summer country retreat, to meet with European socialist leaders for an exchange of ideas. Among the European leaders who met with Humphrey and Reuther were the prime ministers of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as well as future German chancellor Willy Brandt.
Presidential and vice-presidential ambitions (1952–1964)
Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice before his election to the Vice Presidency in 1964. The first time was as Minnesota's favorite son in 1952; he received only 26 votes on the first ballot. The second time was in 1960. In between these two bids, Humphrey was part of the free-for-all for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.
In 1960, Humphrey ran for the nomination against fellow Senator John F. Kennedy in the primaries. Their first meeting was in the Wisconsin Primary, where Kennedy's well-organized and well-funded campaign overcame Humphrey's energetic but poorly funded effort. Humphrey believed defeating Kennedy in Wisconsin would weaken and slow the momentum of the latter's campaign. Kennedy's attractive brothers, sisters, and wife Jacqueline combed the state for votes. At one point Humphrey memorably complained that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store". Humphrey later wrote in his memoirs that "Muriel and I and our 'plain folks' entourage were no match for the glamour of Jackie Kennedy and the other Kennedy women, for Peter Lawford ... and Frank Sinatra singing their commercial 'High Hopes'. Jack Kennedy brought family and Hollywood to Wisconsin. The people loved it and the press ate it up." Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, but by a smaller margin than anticipated. Some commentators argued that Kennedy's victory margin had come almost entirely from areas with large Roman Catholic populations, and that Protestants had supported Humphrey. As a result, Humphrey refused to quit the race and decided to run against Kennedy again in the West Virginia primary. According to one biographer "Humphrey thought his chances were good in West Virginia, one of the few states that had backed him in his losing race for vice-president four years earlier ... West Virginia was more rural than urban, [which] seemed to invite Humphrey's folksy stump style. The state, moreover, was a citadel of labor. It was depressed; unemployment had hit hard; and coal miners' families were hungry. Humphrey felt he could talk to such people, who were 95% Protestant (Humphrey was a Congregationalist) and deep-dyed Bible-belters besides."
Kennedy chose to meet the religion issue head-on. In radio broadcasts, he carefully redefined the issue from Catholic versus Protestant to tolerance versus intolerance. Kennedy's appeal placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive, and Kennedy attacked him with a vengeance. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., the son of the former president, stumped for Kennedy in West Virginia and raised the issue of Humphrey's failure to serve in the armed forces in World War II. Roosevelt told audiences, "I don't know where he [Humphrey] was in World War Two," and handed out flyers charging that Humphrey was a draft dodger. Historian Robert Dallek has written that Robert F. Kennedy, who was serving as his brother's campaign manager, came into "possession of information that Humphrey may have sought military deferments during World War Two ... he pressed Roosevelt to use this." Humphrey believed Roosevelt's draft-dodger claim "had been approved by Bobby [Kennedy], if not Jack". The claims that Humphrey was a draft dodger were inaccurate, because during the war Humphrey had "tried and failed to get into the [military] service because of physical disabilities". After the West Virginia primary, Roosevelt sent Humphrey a written apology and retraction. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Roosevelt "felt that he had been used, blaming [the draft-dodger charge] on Robert Kennedy's determination to win at any cost ... Roosevelt said later that it was the biggest political mistake of his career."
Short on funds, Humphrey could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation. He traveled around the state in a rented bus while Kennedy and his staff flew in a large, family-owned airplane. According to his biographer Carl Solberg, Humphrey spent only $23,000 on the West Virginia primary while Kennedy's campaign privately spent $1.5 million, well over their official estimate of $100,000. Unproven accusations claimed that the Kennedys had bought the West Virginia primary by bribing county sheriffs and other local officials to give Kennedy the vote. Humphrey later wrote, "as a professional politician I was able to accept and indeed respect the efficacy of the Kennedy campaign. But underneath the beautiful exterior, there was an element of ruthlessness and toughness that I had trouble either accepting or forgetting." Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly in West Virginia with 60.8% of the vote. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was leaving the race. By winning West Virginia, Kennedy overcame the belief that Protestant voters would not elect a Catholic to the presidency and thus sewed up the Democratic nomination.
Humphrey won the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which Kennedy did not enter. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, he received 41 votes even though he was no longer a candidate.
Vice presidential campaign
Humphrey's defeat in 1960 had a profound influence on his thinking; after the primaries he told friends that, as a relatively poor man in politics, he was unlikely to ever become President unless he served as Vice President first. Humphrey believed that only in this way could he attain the funds, nationwide organization, and visibility he would need to win the Democratic nomination. So as the 1964 presidential campaign began, Humphrey made clear his interest in becoming Lyndon Johnson's running mate. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson kept the three likely vice-presidential candidates, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Humphrey, as well as the rest of the nation, in suspense before announcing his choice of Humphrey with much fanfare, praising his qualifications at considerable length before announcing his name.
The following day Humphrey's acceptance speech overshadowed Johnson's own acceptance address:
In an address before labor leaders in Youngstown, Ohio on September 7, 1964, Humphrey said the labor movement had "more at stake in this election than almost any other segment of society". In Jamesburg, New Jersey on September 10, Humphrey remarked that Goldwater had a "record of retreat and reaction" when it came to issues of urban housing. During a September 12 Denver Democratic rally, Humphrey charged Goldwater with having rejected programs that most Americans and members of his own party supported. At a Santa Fe September 13 rally, Humphrey said the Goldwater-led Republican Party was seeking "to divide America so that they may conquer" and that Goldwater would pinch individuals in his reduction of government. On September 16, Humphrey said the Americans for Democratic Action supported the Johnson administration's economic sanctions against Cuba, and that the organization wanted to see a free Cuban government. The following day in San Antonio, Texas, Humphrey said Goldwater opposed programs favored by most Texans and Americans.
During a September 27 appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, Humphrey said the Kennedy administration had led America in a prosperous direction and called for voters to issue a referendum with their vote against "those who seek to replace the Statue of Liberty with an iron-padlocked gate."
At Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on October 2, Humphrey said the general election would give voters a choice between his running mate and a candidate "who curses the darkness and never lights a candle". During an October 9 Jersey City, New Jersey appearance, Humphrey responded to critics of the administration, who he called "sick and tired Americans", by touting the accomplishments of both Kennedy's and Johnson's presidencies. In Tampa, Florida on October 18, a week after the resignation of Walter Jenkins amid a scandal, Humphrey said he was unaware of any potential security leaks relating to the case. In Minneapolis on October 24, Humphrey listed the censure vote toward Senator Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights bill, and the nuclear test ban treaty as "three great issues of conscience to come before the United States Senate in the past decade" that Goldwater had voted incorrectly on as a Senator. In an October 26 speech in Chicago, Humphrey called Goldwater "neither a Republican nor a Democrat" and "a radical".
The Johnson-Humphrey ticket won the election overwhelmingly, with 486 electoral votes out of 538. Only five Southern states and Goldwater's home state of Arizona supported the Republican ticket. In October Humphrey had predicted that the ticket would win by a large margin but not carry every state.
Vice President-elect of the United States
Soon after winning the election, Humphrey and Johnson went to LBJ ranch near Stonewall, Texas. On November 6, 1964, Humphrey traveled to the Virgin Islands for a two-week vacation. News stations aired taped remarks in which Humphrey stated that he had not discussed with Johnson what his role would be as vice president and that national campaigns should be reduced by four weeks. In a November 20 interview, Humphrey announced he would resign his Senate seat midway through the next month so that Walter Mondale could assume the position.
On December 10, 1964, Humphrey met with Johnson in the Oval Office, the latter charging the vice president-elect with "developing a publicity machine extraordinaire and of always wanting to get his name in the paper." Johnson showed Humphrey a George Reed memo with the allegation that the president would die within six months from an already acquired fatal heart disease. The same day, during a speech in Washington, Johnson announced Humphrey would have the position of giving assistance to governmental civil rights programs.
On January 19, 1965, the day before the inauguration, Humphrey told the Democratic National Committee that the party had unified because of the national consensus established by the presidential election.
Vice Presidency (1965–1969)
Humphrey took office on January 20, 1965, ending the 14-month vacancy of the Vice President of the United States, which had remained empty when then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was an early skeptic of the then growing Vietnam War. Following a successful Viet Cong hit-and-run attack on a US military installation at Pleiku on February 7, 1965 (where 7 Americans were killed and 109 wounded), Humphrey returned from Georgia to Washington D.C., to attempt to prevent further escalation. He told President Johnson that bombing North Vietnam was not a solution to the problems in South Vietnam, but that bombing would require the injection of US ground forces into South Vietnam to protect the airbases. Presciently, he noted that a military solution in Vietnam would take several years, well beyond the next election cycle. In response to this advice, President Johnson punished Humphrey by treating him coldly and restricting him from his inner circle for a number of months, until Humphrey decided to "get back on the team" and fully support the war effort.
As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War. Many of Humphrey's liberal friends and allies abandoned him because of his refusal to publicly criticize Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Humphrey's critics later learned that Johnson had threatened Humphrey – Johnson told Humphrey that if he publicly criticized his policies, he would destroy Humphrey's chances to become President by opposing his nomination at the next Democratic Convention. However, Humphrey's critics were vocal and persistent: even his nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him. The nickname referred not to his military hawkishness, but rather to his crusading for social welfare and civil rights programs. After his narrow defeat in the 1968 presidential election, Humphrey wrote that "After four years as Vice-President ... I had lost some of my personal identity and personal forcefulness. ... I ought not to have let a man [Johnson] who was going to be a former President dictate my future."
While he was Vice President, Hubert Humphrey was the subject of a satirical song by songwriter/musician Tom Lehrer entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?" The song addressed how some liberals and progressives felt let down by Humphrey, who had become a much more mute figure as Vice President than he had been as a senator. The song goes "Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing? Once he shone on his own, now he sits home alone and waits for the phone to ring. Once a fiery liberal spirit, ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it. ..."
During these years Humphrey was a repeated and favorite guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He also struck up a friendship with Frank Sinatra, who supported his campaign for president in 1968 before his conversion to the Republican party in the early 1970s, and was perhaps most on notice in the fall of 1977 when Sinatra was the star attraction and host of a tribute to a then-ailing Humphrey. He also appeared on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1973.
On April 15, 1965, Humphrey delivered an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, pledging the incumbent session of Congress would "do more for the lasting long-term health of this nation" since the initial session in office at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt assuming the presidency in 1933 and predicting 13 major measures of President Johnson's administration would be passed ahead of the session's conclusion. In mid-May 1965, Humphrey traveled to Dallas, Texas for an off-the-record discussion with donors of President Johnson's campaign. During the visit, Humphrey was imposed tight security as a result of the JFK assassination a year and a half prior and the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald was placed under surveillance by Police Chief Cato Hightower.
During a May 31, 1966 appearance at Huron College, Humphrey said the US should not expect "either friendship or gratitude" in helping poorer countries. At a September 22, 1966 Jamesburg, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Humphrey said the Vietnam War would be shortened if the US stayed firm and hastened the return of troops: "We are making a decision not only to defend Vietnam, we are defending the United States of America."
During a May 1967 news conference, Humphrey said American anger toward Vietnam was losing traction and that he could see a growth in popularity for President Johnson since a low point five months prior. During an August 2, 1967 appearance in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey proposed each state consider forming peacekeeping councils focused on preventing violence, gaining community cooperation, and listening to "the voices of those who have gone unheard."
On November 4, 1967, Humphrey cited Malaysia as an example of what Vietnam could resemble post a Viet Cong defeat while in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The following day, Vice President Humphrey requested Indonesia attempt mediation in the Vietnam War during a meeting with Suharto at Merdeka palace. On December 7, Vice President Humphrey said in an interview that the Viet Cong could potentially be the factor in creating a political compromise with the government of Saigon.
Civil rights
In February 1965, President Johnson appointed Humphrey to the chairmanship of the President's Council on Equal Opportunity. The position and board had been proposed by Humphrey, who told Johnson that the board should consist of members of the Cabinet and federal agency leaders and serve multiple roles: assisting agency cooperation, creating federal program consistency, using advanced planning to avoid potential racial unrest, creating public policy, and meeting with local and state level leaders. During his tenure, he appointed Wiley A Branton as executive director. During the first meeting of the group on March 3, Humphrey stated the budget was US$289,000 and pledged to ensure vigorous work by the small staff. Following the Watts riots in August of that year, Johnson downsized Humphrey's role as the administration's expert on civil rights. Dallek wrote the shift in role was in line with the change in policy the Johnson administration underwent in response to "the changing political mood in the country on aid to African Americans." In a private meeting with Joseph Califano on September 18, 1965, President Johnson stated his intent to remove Humphrey from the post of "point man" on civil rights within the administration, believing the vice president was tasked with enough work. Days later, Humphrey met with Johnson, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and White House Counsel Lee C. White. Johnson told Humphrey he would shorten his role within the administration's civil rights policies and pass a portion to Katzenbach, Califano writing that Humphrey agreed to go along with the plan reluctantly.
In an August 1967 speech at a county officials national convention in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey called for the establishment of a Marshall Plan that would curb poverty in the United States as well as address racial violence, and advocated for the creation of civil peace councils that would counter rioting. He said the councils should include representation from all minority groups and religions, state governments, the National Guard, and law enforcement agencies and that the United States would see itself out of trouble only when law and order was reestablished.
Foreign trips
December 1965 saw the beginning of Humphrey's tour of eastern countries, saying he hoped to have "cordial and frank discussions" ahead of the trip beginning when asked about the content of the talks. During a December 29 meeting with Prime Minister of Japan Eisaku Satō, Humphrey asked the latter for support on achieving peace in the Vietnam War and said it was a showing of strength that the United States wanted a peaceful ending rather than a display of weakness.
Humphrey began a European tour in late-March 1967 to mend frazzled relations and indicated that he was "ready to explain and ready to listen." On April 2, 1967, Vice President Humphrey met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson. Ahead of the meeting, Humphrey said they would discuss multiple topics including the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, European events, Atlantic alliance strengthening, and "the situation in the Far East". White House Press Secretary George Christian said five days later that he had received reports from Vice President Humphrey indicating his tour of the European countries was "very constructive" and said President Johnson was interested in the report as well. While Humphrey was in Florence, Italy on April 1, 1967, 23-year-old Giulio Stocchi threw eggs at the Vice President and missed. He was seized by American bodyguards who turned him in to Italian officers. In Brussels, Belgium on April 9, demonstrators led by communists threw rotten eggs and fruits at Vice President Humphrey's car, also hitting several of his bodyguards. In late-December 1967, Vice President Humphrey began touring Africa.
1968 presidential election
As 1968 began, it looked as if President Johnson, despite the rapidly decreasing approval rating of his Vietnam War policies, would easily win the Democratic nomination for a second time. Humphrey was widely expected to remain Johnson's running mate for reelection in 1968. Johnson was challenged by Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform. With the backing of out-of-state anti-war college students and activists while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy, who was not expected to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, nearly defeated Johnson, finishing with a surprising 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49%. A few days after the New Hampshire primary, after months of contemplation and originally intending to support Johnson's bid for reelection, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York also entered the race on an anti-war platform. On March 31, 1968, a week before the Wisconsin primary, where polls showed a strong standing for McCarthy, President Johnson stunned the nation by withdrawing from his race for a second full term.
Following the announcement from Johnson, Humphrey announced his presidential candidacy on April 27, 1968. Declaring his candidacy in a speech in Washington, DC alongside Senators Fred Harris of Oklahoma and Walter Mondale of Minnesota (who both served as the co-chairs to his campaign), Humphrey stated:
Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.
Also in his speech, Humphrey supported President Johnson's Vietnam initiative he proposed during his address to the nation four weeks earlier; partially halting the bombings in North Vietnam, while sending an additional 13,500 troops and increasing the Department of Defense's budget by 4% over the next fiscal year. Later in the campaign, Humphrey opposed a proposal by Senators McCarthy and George McGovern of South Dakota to the Democratic Convention's Policy Committee, calling for an immediate end to the bombings in Vietnam, an early withdrawal of troops and setting talks for a coalition government with the Viet Cong.
Many people saw Humphrey as Johnson's stand-in; he won major backing from the nation's labor unions and other Democratic groups troubled by young antiwar protesters and the social unrest around the nation. A group of British journalists wrote that Humphrey, despite his liberal record on civil rights and support for a nuclear test-ban treaty, "had turned into an arch-apologist for the war, who was given to trotting around Vietnam looking more than a little silly in olive-drab fatigues and a forage cap. The man whose name had been a by-word in the South for softness toward Negroes had taken to lecturing black groups ... the wild-eyed reformer had become the natural champion of every conservative element in the Democratic Party." Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states by gaining the support of Democratic officeholders who were elected delegates to the Democratic Convention. By June, McCarthy won in Oregon and Pennsylvania, while Kennedy had won in Indiana and Nebraska, though Humphrey was the front runner as he led the delegate count. The California primary was crucial for Kennedy's campaign, as a McCarthy victory would have prevented Kennedy from reaching the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. On June 4, 1968, Kennedy defeated McCarthy by less than 4% in the winner-take-all California primary. But the nation was shocked yet again when Senator Kennedy was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. After the assassination of Kennedy, Humphrey suspended his campaign for two weeks.
Chicago riots and party fallout
Humphrey did not enter any of the 13 state primary elections, but won the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for antiwar candidates. The delegates defeated the peace plank by 1,567 to 1,041. Humphrey selected as his running mate Senator Ed Muskie of Maine. Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheatre convention hall, and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other antiwar candidates. Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago police attacked and beat these protesters, most of them young college students, which amplified the growing feelings of unrest among the public.
Humphrey's inaction during these incidents, Johnson's and Daley's behind-the-scenes maneuvers, public backlash against Humphrey's winning the nomination without entering a single primary, and Humphrey's refusal to meet McCarthy halfway on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's refusal to fully endorse him, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic Party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of Johnson's unpopularity, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that year, all contributed to his loss to former Vice President Nixon. Nevertheless, as Wallace lost support among white union members, Humphrey regained strength and the final polls showed a close race. Humphrey reversed his Vietnam policy, called for peace talks, and won back some of the antiwar Democrats.
Nixon won the electoral college and the election. Humphrey lost the popular vote by less than one percent, with 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839) for Humphrey, and 13.5% (9,901,118) for Wallace. Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes, Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried five states and 46 electoral votes. In his concession speech, Humphrey said, "I have done my best. I have lost; Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will."
Post-Vice Presidency (1969–1978)
Teaching and return to the Senate
After leaving the Vice Presidency, Humphrey taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and served as chairman of the board of consultants at the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
On February 11, 1969, Humphrey met privately with Mayor Richard J. Daley and denied ever being "at war" with Daley during a press conference later in the day. In March, Humphrey declined answering questions on the Johnson administration being either involved or privy to the cessation of bombing of the north in Vietnam during an interview on Issues and Answers. At a press conference on June 2, 1969, Humphrey backed Nixon's peace efforts, dismissing the notion that he was not seeking an end to the war. In early July, Humphrey traveled to Finland for a private visit. Later that month, Humphrey returned to Washington after visiting Europe, a week after McCarthy declared he would not seek reelection, Humphrey declining to comment amid speculation he intended to return to the Senate. During the fall, Humphrey arranged to meet with President Nixon through United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Humphrey saying the day after the meeting that President Nixon had "expressed his appreciation on my attitude to his effort on Vietnam." On August 3, Humphrey said that Russia was buying time to develop ballistic missile warheads to catch up with the United States and that security was the "overriding concern" of the Soviet Union. Days later, Humphrey repudiated efforts against President Nixon's anti-ballistic missile system: "I have a feeling that they [opponents of the ABM] were off chasing rabbits when a tiger is loose." During October, Humphrey spoke before the AFL-CIO convention delegates, charging President Nixon's economic policies with "putting Americans out of work without slowing inflation." On October 10, Humphrey stated his support for Nixon's policies in Vietnam and that he believed "the worst thing that we can do is to try to undermine the efforts of the President." At a December 21 press conference, Humphrey said President Nixon was a participant in the "politics of polarization" and could not seek unity on one hand but have divisive agents on the other. On December 26, Humphrey responded to a claim from former President Johnson that Humphrey had been cost the election by his own call for a stop to North Vietnam bombing, saying he did what he "thought was right and responsible at Salt Lake City."
On January 4, 1970, Humphrey said the United States should cease tests of nuclear weapons during the continued conversations for potential strategic arms limitations between the United States and the Soviet Union while speaking to the National Retail Furniture association at the Palmer House. In February, Humphrey predicted Nixon would withdraw 75,000 or more troops prior to the year's midterm elections and the main issue would be the economy during an interview: "The issue of 1970 is the economy. Some of my fellow Democrats don't believe this. But this is a fact." On February 23, Humphrey disclosed his recommendation to Larry O'Brien for the latter to return to being Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a Humphrey spokesman reporting that Humphrey wanted a quick settlement to the issue of the DNC chairmanship. Solberg wrote of President Nixon's April 1970 Cambodian Campaign as having done away with Humphrey's hopes that the war be taken out of political context. In May, Humphrey pledged to do all that he was capable of to provide additional war planes to Israel and stress the issue to American leaders. Amid an August 11 address to the American Bar Association luncheon meeting, Humphrey called for liberals to cease defending campus radicals and militants and align with law and order.
Humphrey had not planned to return to political life, but an unexpected opportunity changed his mind. McCarthy, who was up for reelection in 1970, realized that he had only a slim chance of winning even re-nomination for the Minnesota seat because he had angered his party by opposing Johnson and Humphrey for the 1968 presidential nomination, and declined to run. Humphrey won the nomination, defeated Republican Congressman Clark MacGregor, and returned to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1971. Ahead of resuming his senatorial duties, Humphrey had a November 16, 1970 White House meeting with President Nixon as part of a group of newly elected senators invited to meet with the president. He was reelected in 1976, and remained in office until his death. In a rarity in politics, Humphrey held both Senate seats from his state (Class I and Class II) at different times. During his return to the Senate he served in the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and a portion of the 95th Congress. He served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in the 94th Congress.
Fourth Senate term
L. Edward Purcell wrote that upon returning to the Senate, Humphrey found himself "again a lowly junior senator with no seniority" and that he resolved to create credibility in the eyes of liberals.
On May 3, 1971, after the Americans for Democratic Action adopted a resolution demanding President Nixon's impeachment, Humphrey commented that they were acting "more out of emotion and passion than reason and prudent judgment" and that the request was irresponsible. On May 21, Humphrey said ending hunger and malnutrition in the U.S. was "a moral obligation" during a speech to International Food Service Manufacturers Association members at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. In June, Humphrey delivered the commencement address at the University of Bridgeport and days later said that he believed Nixon was interested in seeing a peaceful end to the Vietnam War "as badly as any senator or anybody else." On July 14, while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control, Humphrey proposed amending the defense procurement bill to place in escrow all funds for creation and usage of multiple‐missile warheads in the midst of continued arms limitations talks. Humphrey said members of the Nixon administration needed to remember "when they talk of a tough negotiating position, they are going to get a tough response." On September 6, Humphrey rebuked the Nixon administration's wage price freeze, saying it was based on trickle-down policies and advocating "percolate up" as a replacement, while speaking at a United Rubber Workers gathering. On October 26, Humphrey stated his support for removing barriers to voting registration and authorizing students to establish voting residences in their college communities, rebuking the refusal of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell the previous month to take a role in shaping voter registration laws as applicable to new voters. On December 24, 1971, Humphrey accused the Nixon administration of turning its back on the impoverished in the rural parts of the United States, citing few implementations of the relief recommendations of the 1967 National Advisory Commission; in another statement he said only 3 of the 150 recommendations had been implemented. On December 27, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was responsible for an escalation of the Southeast Asia war and requested complete cessation of North Vietnam bombing while responding to antiwar protestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In January 1972, Humphrey stated the U.S. would be out of the Vietnam War by that point had he been elected President, saying Nixon was taking longer to withdraw American troops from the country than it took to defeat Adolf Hitler. On May 20, Humphrey said Nixon's proposal to limit schoolchildren busing was "insufficient in the amount of aid needed for our children, deceptive to the American people, and insensitive to the laws and the Constitution of this nation", in a reversal of his prior stance, while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During a May 30 appearance in Burbank, California, Humphrey stated his support for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam despite an invasion by North Vietnam.
In January 1973, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was plotting to eliminate a school milk program in the upcoming fiscal year budget during a telephone interview. On February 18, 1973, Humphrey said the Middle East could possibly usher in peace following the Vietnam War ending along with American troops withdrawing from Indochina during an appearance at the New York Hilton. In August 1973, Humphrey called on Nixon to schedule a meeting with nations exporting and importing foods as part of an effort to both create a worldwide policy on food and do away with food hoarding. After Nixon's dismissal of Archibald Cox, Humphrey said he found "the whole situation entirely depressing." Three days after Cox's dismissal, during a speech to the AFL-CIO convention on October 23, Humphrey declined to state his position on whether Nixon should be impeached, citing that his congressional position would likely cause him to have to play a role in determining Nixon's fate. On December 21, Humphrey disclosed his request of federal tax deductions of US$199,153 for the donation of his vice presidential papers to the Minnesota State Historical Society.
In early January 1974, Humphrey checked into the Bethesda Naval Hospital for tests regarding a minute tumor of the bladder. His physician Edgar Berman said the next day that Humphrey "looks fine and feels fine" and was expected to leave early the following week. In an interview conducted on March 29, 1974, Humphrey concurred with Senator Mike Mansfield's assessment from the prior day that the House of Representatives had enough votes to impeach Nixon. Humphrey was reportedly pleased by Nixon's resignation.
In an April 1975 news conference at the spring education conference of the United Federation of Teachers, Humphrey cited the need for a national department of education, a national education trust fund, and a federal government provision for a third of America's educational expenses. He said the Ford administration had no educational policy and noted the United States was the only industrialized country without a separate national education department. In May, Humphrey testified at the trial of his former campaign manager Jack L. Chestnut, admitting that as a candidate he sought the support of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., but saying he was not privy to the illegal contributions Chestnut was accused of taking from the organization. Later that month, Humphrey was one of 19 senators to originate a letter stating the expectation of 75 senators that Ford would submit a foreign aid request to Congress meeting the "urgent military and economic needs" of Israel. In August, after the United States Court of Appeals ruled that Ford had no authority to continue levying fees of $2 a barrel on imported oil, Humphrey hailed the decision as "the best news we've heard on the inflation front in a long time" and urged Ford to accept the decision because the price reduction on oil and oil‐related products would benefit the national economy. In October, after Sara Jane Moore's assassination attempt on Ford, Humphrey joined former presidential candidates Barry Goldwater, Edmund Muskie, and George McGovern in urging Ford and other presidential candidates to restrain their campaigning the following year to prevent future attempts on their lives.
In October 1976, Humphrey was admitted to a hospital for the removal of a cancerous bladder, predicted his victory in his reelection bid and advocated for members of his party to launch efforts to increase voter turnout upon his release.
1972 presidential election
On November 4, 1970, shortly after being reelected to the Senate, Humphrey stated his intention to take on the role of a "harmonizer" within the Democratic Party to minimize the possibility of potential presidential candidates within the party lambasting each other prior to deciding to run in the then-upcoming election, dismissing that he was an active candidate at that time. In December 1971, Humphrey made his second trip to New Jersey in under a month, talking with a plurality of county leaders at the Robert Treat Hotel: "I told them I wanted their support. I said I'd rather work with them than against them."
In 1972, Humphrey once again ran for the Democratic nomination for president, announcing his candidacy on January 10, 1972 during a twenty-minute speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time of the announcement, Humphrey said he was running on a platform of the removal of troops from Vietnam and a revitalization of the United States economy. He drew upon continuing support from organized labor and the African-American and Jewish communities, but remained unpopular with college students because of his association with the Vietnam War, even though he had altered his position in the years since his 1968 defeat. Humphrey initially planned to skip the primaries, as he had in 1968. Even after he revised this strategy he still stayed out of New Hampshire, a decision that allowed McGovern to emerge as the leading challenger to Muskie in that state. Humphrey did win some primaries, including those in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, but was defeated by McGovern in several others, including the crucial California primary. Humphrey also was out-organized by McGovern in caucus states and was trailing in delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. His hopes rested on challenges to the credentials of some of the McGovern delegates. For example, the Humphrey forces argued that the winner-take-all rule for the California primary violated procedural reforms intended to produce a better reflection of the popular vote, the reason that the Illinois delegation was bounced. The effort failed, as several votes on delegate credentials went McGovern's way, guaranteeing his victory.
1976 presidential election
On April 22, 1974, Humphrey said that he would not enter the upcoming Democratic presidential primary for the 1976 Presidential election. Humphrey said at the time that he was urging fellow Senator and Minnesotan Walter Mondale to run, despite believing that Ted Kennedy would enter the race as well. Leading up to the election cycle, Humphrey also said, "Here's a time in my life when I appear to have more support than at any other time in my life. But it's too financially, politically, and physically debilitating – and I'm just not going to do it." In December 1975, a Gallup poll was released showing Humphrey and Ronald Reagan as the leading Democratic and Republican candidates for the following year's presidential election.
On April 12, 1976, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party State Senator James P. Dugan said the selection of a majority of uncommitted delegates could be interpreted as a victory for Humphrey, who had indicated his availability as a presidential candidate for the convention. Humphrey announced his choice to not enter the New Jersey primary nor authorize any committees to work to support him during an April 29, 1976 appearance in the Senate Caucus Room. Even after Jimmy Carter had won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, many still wanted Humphrey to announce his availability for a draft. However, he did not do so, and Carter easily secured the nomination on the first round of balloting. Humphrey had learned that he had terminal cancer, prompting him to sit the race out.
Humphrey attended the November 17, 1976 meeting between President-elect Carter and Democratic congressional leaders in which Carter sought out support for a proposal to have the president's power to reorganize the government reinstated with potential to be vetoed by Congress.
Fifth Senate term
Humphrey attended the May 3, 1977 White House meeting on legislative priorities. Humphrey told President Carter that the U.S. would enter a period of high unemployment without an economic stimulus and noted that in "every period in our history, a rise in unemployment has been accompanied by a rise in inflation". Humphrey stated a preventative health care program would be the only way for the Carter administration to not have to fund soaring health costs. In July 1977, after the Senate began debating approval for funding of the neutron bomb, Humphrey stated that the White House had agreed to release the impact statement, a requirement for Congressional funding of a new weapon.
Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate (1977–1978)
In 1974, along with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, Humphrey authored the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, the first attempt at full employment legislation. The original bill proposed to guarantee full employment to all citizens over 16 and set up a permanent system of public jobs to meet that goal. A watered-down version called the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act passed the House and Senate in 1978. It set the goal of 4 percent unemployment and 3 percent inflation and instructed the Federal Reserve Board to try to produce those goals when making policy decisions.
Humphrey ran for Majority Leader after the 1976 election but lost to Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The Senate honored Humphrey by creating the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate for him. On August 16, 1977, Humphrey revealed he was suffering from terminal bladder cancer. On October 25 of that year, he addressed the Senate, and on November 3, Humphrey became the first person other than a member of the House or the President of the United States to address the House of Representatives in session. President Carter honored him by giving him command of Air Force One for his final trip to Washington on October 23. One of Humphrey's final speeches contained the lines "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped", which is sometimes described as the "liberals' mantra".
Death and funeral
Humphrey spent his last weeks calling old political acquaintances. One call was to Richard Nixon inviting him to his upcoming funeral, which Nixon accepted. Staying in the hospital, Humphrey went from room to room, cheering up other patients by telling them jokes and listening to them. On January 13, 1978, he died of bladder cancer at his home in Waverly, Minnesota, at the age of 66.
Humphrey's body lay in state in the rotundas of the U.S. Capitol and the Minnesota State Capitol before being interred at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. His passing overshadowed the death of his colleague from Montana, Senator Lee Metcalf, who had died the day before Humphrey. Old friends and opponents of Humphrey, from Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon to President Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale, paid their final respects. "He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die", said Mondale.
Humphrey's wife Muriel was appointed by Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich to serve in the U.S. Senate until a special election to fill the term was held; she did not seek election to finish her husband's term in office. In 1981 she married Max Brown and took the name Muriel Humphrey Brown. Upon her death in 1998 she was interred next to Humphrey at Lakewood Cemetery.
Honors and legacy
In 1965, Humphrey was made an Honorary Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically African American fraternity.
In 1978, Humphrey received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
He was awarded posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal on June 13, 1979 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 52¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.
There is a statue of him in front of the Minneapolis City Hall.
Humphrey's legacy is bolstered by his early leadership in civil rights, and undermined by his long support of the Vietnam War. His leading biographer Arnold A. Offner says he was "the most successful legislator in the nation's history and a powerful voice for equal justice for all." Offner writes that Humphrey was:
A major force for nearly every important liberal policy initiative....putting civil rights on his party's and the nation's agenda [in 1948] for decades to come. As senator he proposed legislation to effect national health insurance, for aid to poor nations, immigration and income tax reform, a Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the path breaking 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty....[He provided] masterful stewardship of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.
While acknowledging his accomplishments, some historians emphasize that Humphrey was "a flawed, and not entirely likeable, figure who talked too much and neglected his family while pursuing a politics of compromise that owed as much to his vaunting personal ambition as to political pragmatism."
Namesakes
Fellowship
The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which fosters an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding throughout the world.
Buildings and institutions
The Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
The former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome domed stadium in Minneapolis which was home to the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League and the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and its building, the Hubert H. Humphrey Center (formerly Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; changed in January 2011)
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Bridge carrying FL S.R. 520 over the Indian River Lagoon between Cocoa and Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida
The Hubert H. Humphrey Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in Los Angeles, California.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Recreation Center of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in Pacoima, CA.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Auditorium at Doland High School in Doland, South Dakota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Waverly, Minnesota
The Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Portrayals
Franklin Cover in the 1982 television film A Woman Called Golda.
Bradley Whitford in the 2016 television film All the Way.
Doug McKeon in the 2017 film LBJ.
Electoral history
See also
Politics of Minnesota
Humphrey's son, Hubert H. Humphrey III and grandson Buck Humphrey are also Minnesotan politicians.
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
Humphrey objection
Notes
References
Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979. A physician's personal account of his friendship with Humphrey from 1957 until his death in 1978.
Boomhower, Ray E. "Fighting the Good Fight: John Bartlow Martin and Hubert Humphrey's 1968 Presidential Campaign." Indiana Magazine of History (2020) 116#1 pp 1-29. online
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Chester, Lewis, Hodgson, Godfrey, Page, Bruce. An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. online
Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.
Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.
Engelmayer, Sheldon D., and Robert J. Wagman. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. (1978). online
Garrettson, Charles L. III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election That Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993). online
Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, a primary source. online
Johns, Andrew L. The Price of Loyalty: Hubert Humphrey's Vietnam Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).
Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. online
Offner, Arnold, "Hubert Humphrey: The Conscience of the Country," New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Pomper, Gerald. "The nomination of Hubert Humphrey for vice-president." Journal of Politics 28.3 (1966): 639-659. online
Reichard, Gary W. "Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey" Minnesota History 56#2 (1998), pp. 50-67 online
Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York : Norton, 1984. online
Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 352.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. (Reprint)
External links
University of Texas biography
Hubert H. Humphrey Papers are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Humphrey's complete speech texts and a broad sample of his speech sound recordings have been digitzed by the Minnesota Historical Society under a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1964 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Account of 1948 Presidential campaign – includes text of Humphrey's speech at the Democratic National Convention
Oral History Interviews with Hubert H. Humphrey, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Information on Humphrey's thought and influence, including quotations from his speeches and writings.
Hubert H. Humphrey at the Macedonian Baptist Church, San Francisco, May 23, 1972 Photographs by Bruce Jackson of Humphrey on his last campaign.
Radio airchecks/recordings of Hubert H. Humphrey from 1946 to 1978 including interviews, radio appearances, newscasts, 1968 election concession speech, etc.
"Hubert Humphrey, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
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"Moral Mondays Illinois is a series of protests modeled after similar Moral Monday demonstrations that took place in North Carolina. The demonstrations are organized by Fair Economy Illinois and led by clergy members. Moral Mondays Illinois protesters \"demand that Illinois' elected officials tax corporations and the rich in order to fix the state's gaping budget deficit\" rather than the budget cuts proposed by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.\n\nMoral Monday Illinois protesters use tactics like civil disobedience and street theater to urge the governor to raise taxes on the wealthy instead of cutting public services. While the North Carolina protests took place outside public buildings, Illinois Moral Mondays target the homes and businesses of individuals who donated to Rauner's campaign.\n\nProtests \nSeven Moral Mondays Illinois protests took place in the summer of 2015. The protesters typically met at James R. Thompson Center before they marched or were bussed to the offices or homes of individuals who donated money to Rauner's campaign. Dozens of protesters were arrested or issued citations by police.\n\nMay 18 \nProtesters gathered in front of the Chicago Board of Trade Building. About a dozen protesters were arrested and cited with \"failure to exercise due care\" for blocking traffic.\n\nJune 1 \nProtester blocked traffic in the Chicago Loop, the city's central business district during rush hour. According to a local news report, police detained some protesters and removed them from the street.\n\nJune 15 \nProtesters marched to Riverside Plaza, the office building of investor and Rauner campaign donor Sam Zell. Police arrested seven activists for criminal trespassing and issued 21 citations to activists who sat down in the street to block traffic.\n\nJune 29 \nProtesters marched from James R. Thompson Center to the office building of another campaign Rauner donor, Kenneth C. Griffin. At least eight protesters were arrested for criminal trespassing.\n\nJuly 13 \nProtesters stormed the lobby of Morningstar, Inc. because its CEO also donated to Rauner's campaign. Police issued six citations to protesters for trespassing. Fair Economy Illinois leader Toby Chow called the proposed budget cuts \"racist\" and said they would \"kill the poor and vulnerable people in our state.\"\n\nJuly 27 \nAbout two dozen activists organized by Illinois People's Action protested against fossil fuel use and state budget cuts at the Illinois Coal Association. At the protest, Illinois People's Action leader said, \"We have to slam on the brakes and that means an end to the use of fossil fuels. All of them.\"\n\nAugust 10 \nAfter convening at the James R. Thompson Center, protesters were bussed to the home of Elizabeth Christie, who also contributed to Rauner's campaign, in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. While outside her home, protesters chanted, \"Christie, Christie, you can't hide. We can see your greedy side.\"\n\nNovember 2 \nAbout 40 protesters blocked the entrances to the Chicago Board of Trade while several hundred others protested nearby. Those blocking the entrances were arrested. The protesters were asking for the implementation of the LaSalle Street Tax, a local Financial Transaction Tax levied on trading at the institution.\n\nReferences\n\nCivil disobedience\n2015 in Illinois\nProtests in the United States\n2015 protests",
"The Kalay clashes are a series of clashes between the Tatmadaw and armed protestors in the town of Kalay and villages surrounding it in Kale Township during the 2021–2022 anti-coup insurgency in Myanmar. The conflict in the township has become one of the first instances of armed resistance to the military of Myanmar apart from actions by Ethnic Armed Organizations during the recent unrest in the country following the February coup.\n\nBackground \n\nThe first instances of armed resistance to the military crackdowns on protests in the area were reported on 28 March. Protesters armed with weapons such as homemade hunting rifles have set up strongholds in parts of Kalay and engaged in battles with the Tatmadaw, who stormed these strongholds on several occasions. In addition, armed villagers have ambushed and attacked Tatmadaw soldiers and policeman en route to the city in support of the protesters. Dozens of protesters, soldiers and policeman have been killed overall since 28 March.\n\nClashes \nOn 28 March 2021, the Tatmadaw stormed the Tarhan protest camp, one of the protesters strongholds in Kalay. Armed protesters clashed with the Tatmadaw in the city with homemade hunting rifles while villagers attacked soldiers outside the village. The protesters were forced to withdraw and the protest camp was destroyed by the Tatmadaw that night. 4 armed protesters and four soldiers were reportedly killed during the clashes, with 17 soldiers additionally injured.\n\nBetween 30 March and April, villagers around Kale township ambushed Tatmadaw reinforcements on the way to Kalay in an offensive which lead to the deaths of 5 villagers. 11 protesters were killed in Kalay as well, without information about clashes. The protest camp was rebuilt and protests continued.\n\nOn 31 March a villager was shot in the head and killed by security forces in Natchaung, while four police officers were captured by armed protesters in Kalay the same day, allegedly attempting to scout the protesters' positions. Around some time, the protesters in Kalay organized themselves into the \"Kalay Civil Army.\" The captured police officers were later handed back over to the Tatmadaw in exchange for the release of 9 civilians who were detained by the military from the town. This the first such deal that took place during the 2021 protests.\n\nIn the early morning hours of 7 April, the Tatamadaw carried out another assault on protests strongholds in Kalay for the second time. Security forces stormed the Tarhan camp from multiple directions, armed with machine guns and grenades. Security forces sent to remove barricades opened fire on protesters. Kalay Civil Army fighters clashed with security forces, while 45 minutes into the battle Tatmadaw soldiers cut off Tarhan from reinforcements attempting to bolster the camp's defenders. 11 protesters were reportedly killed, with 10 injured in the clashes. while an arrest campaign took place in the town. Protesters nevertheless took to the streets hours later.\n\nSee also\n2021 Myanmar coup d'état\nTimeline of the 2021 Myanmar protests\n\nReferences\n\n2021 in Myanmar\n2021 protests\nApril 2021 events in Asia\nConflicts in 2021\nMarch 2021 events in Asia\nMassacres in Myanmar\nMass murder in 2021\nOngoing conflicts\nConflicts in 2022\nProtests in Myanmar"
]
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[
"Hubert Humphrey",
"Chicago riots and party fallout",
"Who was the running mate of Humphrey?",
"Ed Muskie,",
"who were the protesters?",
"antiwar demonstrators,"
]
| C_c69d1ec09c124f158fcdca0296f5b904_1 | Where did Humphrey win the Democratic nomination? | 3 | Where did Hubert Humphrey win the Democratic nomination? | Hubert Humphrey | Humphrey and his running mate, Ed Muskie, who had not entered any of the 13 state primary elections, went on to win the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, Illinois even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for anti-war candidates, the delegates had defeated the peace plank by 1,567 3/4 to 1,041 1/4 . Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheater convention hall (closed 1999), and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by the thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other "anti-war" candidates. These protesters - most of them young college students - were attacked and beaten on live television by Chicago police, actions which merely amplified the growing feelings of unrest in the general public. Humphrey's inaction during these activities along with President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's behind the scenes convention influencing, public backlash from securing the presidential nomination without entering a single primary, as well as Humphrey refusal to meet McCarthy half way on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's lack of full endorsement of Humphrey, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of the unpopularity of Johnson, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans when both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated during the election year, were all contributing factors that caused him to eventually lose the election to former Vice President Nixon. Although he lost the election by less than 1% of the popular vote, 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839 votes) for Humphrey, with 13.5% (9,901,118 votes) for George Wallace, Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes. Richard Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried 5 states in the South and 46 electoral votes (270 were needed to win). In his concession speech, Humphrey said: "I have done my best. I have lost, Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will." CANNOTANSWER | Chicago, Illinois | Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. As a senator he was a major leader of modern liberalism in the United States. As President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, he supported the controversial Vietnam War. An intensely divided Democratic Party nominated him in the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.
Born in Wallace, South Dakota, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota. In 1943, he became a professor of political science at Macalester College and ran a failed campaign for mayor of Minneapolis. He helped found the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) in 1944; the next year he was elected mayor of Minneapolis, serving until 1948 and co-founding the liberal anti-communist group Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and successfully advocated for the inclusion of a proposal to end racial segregation in the 1948 Democratic National Convention's party platform. He was a leader of American liberalism, especially in supporting civil rights. Liberals split over his strong support for the Vietnam War.
Humphrey served three terms in the Senate from 1949 to 1964, and was the Senate Majority Whip for the last four years of his tenure. During this time, he was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the first initiative to create the Peace Corps, and chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament. He unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 1952 and 1960. After Lyndon B. Johnson acceded to the presidency, he chose Humphrey as his running mate, and the Democratic ticket won a landslide victory in the 1964 election.
In March 1968, Johnson made his surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, and Humphrey launched his campaign for the presidency. Loyal to the Johnson administration's policies on the Vietnam War, he received opposition from many within his own party and avoided the primaries to focus on winning the delegates of non-primary states at the Democratic Convention. His delegate strategy succeeded in clinching the nomination, and he chose Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. In the general election, he nearly matched Nixon's tally in the popular vote but lost the electoral vote by a wide margin. After the defeat, he returned to the Senate and served from 1971 until his death in 1978. From 1977 to 1979, he served as Deputy President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
Early life and education
Humphrey was born in a room over his father's drugstore in Wallace, South Dakota. He was the son of Ragnild Kristine Sannes (1883–1973), a Norwegian immigrant, and Hubert Horatio Humphrey Sr. (1882–1949). Humphrey spent most of his youth in Doland, South Dakota, on the Dakota prairie; the town's population was about 600. His father was a licensed pharmacist and merchant who served as mayor and a town council member. The father also served briefly in the South Dakota state legislature and was a South Dakota delegate to the 1944 and 1948 Democratic National Conventions. In the late 1920s, a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both banks in the town closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his store open.
After his son graduated from Doland's high school, Hubert Sr. left Doland and opened a new drugstore in the larger town of Huron, South Dakota (population 11,000), where he hoped to improve his fortunes. Because of the family's financial struggles, Humphrey had to leave the University of Minnesota after just one year. He earned a pharmacist's license from the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado (completing a two-year licensure program in just six months), and helped his father run his store from 1931 to 1937. Both father and son were innovative in finding ways to attract customers: "to supplement their business, the Humphreys had become manufacturers ... of patent medicines for both hogs and humans. A sign featuring a wooden pig was hung over the drugstore to tell the public about this unusual service. Farmers got the message, and it was Humphrey's that became known as the farmer's drugstore." One biographer noted, "while Hubert Jr. minded the store and stirred the concoctions in the basement, Hubert Sr. went on the road selling 'Humphrey's BTV' (Body Tone Veterinary), a mineral supplement and dewormer for hogs, and 'Humphrey's Chest Oil' and 'Humphrey's Sniffles' for two-legged sufferers." Humphrey later wrote, "we made 'Humphrey's Sniffles', a substitute for Vick's Nose Drops. I felt ours were better. Vick's used mineral oil, which is not absorbent, and we used a vegetable-oil base, which was. I added benzocaine, a local anesthetic, so that even if the sniffles didn't get better, you felt it less." The various "Humphrey cures ... worked well enough and constituted an important part of the family income ... the farmers that bought the medicines were good customers." Over time Humphrey's Drug Store became a profitable enterprise and the family again prospered. While living in Huron, Humphrey regularly attended Huron's largest Methodist church and became scoutmaster of the church's Boy Scout Troop 6. He "started basketball games in the church basement ... although his scouts had no money for camp in 1931, Hubert found a way in the worst of that summer's dust-storm grit, grasshoppers, and depression to lead an overnight [outing]."
Humphrey did not enjoy working as a pharmacist, and his dream remained to earn a doctorate in political science and become a college professor. His unhappiness was manifested in "stomach pains and fainting spells", though doctors could find nothing wrong with him. In August 1937, he told his father that he wanted to return to the University of Minnesota. Hubert Sr. tried to convince his son not to leave by offering him a full partnership in the store, but Hubert Jr. refused and told his father "how depressed I was, almost physically ill from the work, the dust storms, the conflict between my desire to do something and be somebody and my loyalty to him ... he replied 'Hubert, if you aren't happy, then you ought to do something about it'." Humphrey returned to the University of Minnesota in 1937 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. He was a member of Phi Delta Chi, a pharmacy fraternity. He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. One of his classmates was Russell B. Long, a future U.S. Senator from Louisiana.
He then became an instructor and doctoral student at the University of Minnesota from 1940 to 1941 (joining the American Federation of Teachers), and was a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Humphrey was a star on the university's debate team; one of his teammates was future Minnesota Governor and US Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. In the 1940 presidential campaign Humphrey and future University of Minnesota president Malcolm Moos debated the merits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, and Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee, on a Minneapolis radio station. Humphrey supported Roosevelt. Humphrey soon became active in Minneapolis politics, and as a result never finished his PhD.
Marriage and early career
In 1934, Humphrey began dating Muriel Buck, a bookkeeper and graduate of local Huron College. They were married from 1936 until Humphrey's death nearly 42 years later. They had four children: Nancy Faye, Hubert Horatio III, Robert Andrew, and Douglas Sannes. Money was an issue. One biographer noted, "For much of his life he was short of money to live on, and his relentless drive to attain the White House seemed at times like one long, losing struggle to raise enough campaign funds to get there." To help boost his salary, Humphrey frequently took paid outside speaking engagements. Through most of his years as a U.S. senator and vice president, he lived in a middle-class suburban housing development in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In 1958, the Humphreys used their savings and his speaking fees to build a lakefront home in Waverly, Minnesota, about 40 miles west of Minneapolis.
During World War II, Humphrey tried three times to join the armed forces but failed. His first two attempts were to join the Navy, first as a commissioned officer and then as an enlisted man. He was rejected both times for color blindness. He then tried to enlist in the Army in December 1944 but failed the physical exam because of a double hernia, color blindness, and calcification of the lungs. Despite his attempts to join the military, one biographer would note that "all through his political life, Humphrey was dogged by the charge that he was a draft dodger" during the war.
Humphrey led various wartime government agencies and worked as a college instructor. In 1942, he was the state director of new production training and reemployment and chief of the Minnesota war service program. In 1943 he was the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. From 1943 to 1944, Humphrey was a professor of political science at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he headed the university's recently created international debate department, which focused on the international politics of World War II and the creation of the United Nations. After leaving Macalester in the spring of 1944, Humphrey worked as a news commentator for a Minneapolis radio station until 1945.
In 1943, Humphrey made his first run for elective office, for Mayor of Minneapolis. He lost, but his poorly funded campaign still captured over 47% of the vote. In 1944, Humphrey was one of the key players in the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties of Minnesota to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He also worked on President Roosevelt's 1944 reelection campaign. When Minnesota Communists tried to seize control of the new party in 1945, Humphrey became an engaged anticommunist and led the successful fight to oust the Communists from the DFL.
After the war, he again ran for mayor of Minneapolis; this time, he won the election with 61% of the vote. As mayor, he helped ensure the appointment of a friend and previous neighbor, Edwin Ryan, as head of the police department, as he needed a "police chief whose integrity and loyalty would be above reproach." Though they had differing views of labor unions, Ryan and Humphrey worked together to crack down on crime in Minneapolis. Humphrey told Ryan, "I want this town cleaned up and I mean I want it cleaned up now, not a year from now or a month from now, right now", and "You take care of the law enforcement. I'll take care of the politics." Humphrey served as mayor from 1945 to 1948, winning reelection in 1947 by the largest margin in the city's history to that time. Humphrey gained national fame by becoming one of the founders of the liberal anticommunist Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), and he served as chairman from 1949 to 1950. He also reformed the Minneapolis police force. The city had been named the "anti-Semitism capital" of the country, and its small African-American population also faced discrimination. Humphrey's mayoralty is noted for his efforts to fight all forms of bigotry. He formed the Council on Human Relations and established a municipal version of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, making Minneapolis one of only a few cities in the United States to prohibit racial discrimination in the workforce. Humphrey and his publicists were proud that the Council on Human Relations brought together individuals of varying ideologies. In 1960, Humphrey told journalist Theodore H. White, "I was mayor once, in Minneapolis ... a mayor is a fine job, it's the best job there is between being a governor and being the President."
1948 Democratic National Convention
The Democratic Party of 1948 was split between those, mainly Northerners, who thought the federal government should actively protect civil rights for racial minorities, and those, mainly Southerners, who believed that states should be able to enforce traditional racial segregation within their borders.
At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the party platform reflected the division by containing only platitudes supporting civil rights. The incumbent president, Harry S. Truman, had shelved most of his 1946 Commission on Civil Rights's recommendations to avoid angering Southern Democrats. But Humphrey had written in The Progressive magazine, "The Democratic Party must lead the fight for every principle in the report. It is all or nothing."
A diverse coalition opposed the convention's tepid civil rights platform, including anticommunist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John F. Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party. They proposed adding a "minority plank" to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to more aggressive opposition to racial segregation. The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. Also strongly backing the minority plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh. Although seen as conservatives, the urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, with only comparatively small losses from Southern Democrats. Although many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, except for the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney.
Despite Truman's aides' aggressive pressure to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey spoke for the minority plank. In a renowned speech, Humphrey passionately told the Convention, "To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey and his allies succeeded: the convention adopted the pro-civil-rights plank by a vote of 651 to 582.
After the convention's vote, the Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation walked out of the hall. Many Southern Democrats were so enraged at this affront to their "way of life" that they formed the Dixiecrat party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The Dixiecrats' goal was to take Southern states away from Truman and thus cause his defeat. They reasoned that after such a defeat, the national Democratic Party would never again aggressively pursue a pro-civil rights agenda. The move backfired: although the civil rights plank cost Truman the Dixiecrats' support, it gained him many votes from blacks, especially in large northern cities. As a result, Truman won an upset victory over his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. The result demonstrated that the Democratic Party could win presidential elections without the "Solid South" and weakened Southern Democrats. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has written that Humphrey probably did more to get Truman elected in 1948 than anyone other than Truman himself.
United States Senate (1949–1964)
Humphrey was elected to the United States Senate in 1948 on the DFL ticket, defeating James M. Shields in the DFL primary with 89% of the vote, and unseating incumbent Republican Joseph H. Ball in the general election with 60% of the vote. He took office on January 3, 1949, becoming the first Democrat elected senator from Minnesota since before the Civil War. Humphrey wrote that the victory heightened his sense of self, as he had beaten the odds of defeating a Republican with statewide support. Humphrey's father died that year, and Humphrey stopped using the "Jr." suffix on his name. He was reelected in 1954 and 1960. His colleagues selected him as majority whip in 1961, a position he held until he left the Senate on December 29, 1964, to assume the vice presidency. Humphrey served from the 81st to the 87th sessions of Congress, and in a portion of the 88th Congress.
Initially, Humphrey's support of civil rights led to his being ostracized by Southern Democrats, who dominated Senate leadership positions and wanted to punish him for proposing the civil rights platform at the 1948 Convention. Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia, a leader of Southern Democrats, once remarked to other Senators as Humphrey walked by, "Can you imagine the people of Minnesota sending that damn fool down here to represent them?" Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground; his integrity, passion and eloquence eventually earned him the respect of even most of the Southerners. The Southerners were also more inclined to accept Humphrey after he became a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Humphrey became known for his advocacy of liberal causes (such as civil rights, arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid), and for his long and witty speeches.
Humphrey was a liberal leader who fought to uphold Truman's veto of the McCarran Act of 1950. The bill was designed to suppress the American Communist Party. With a small group of liberals he supported the Kilgore substitute that would allow the president to lock up subversives, without trial, in a time of national emergency. The model was the internment of West Coast Japanese in 1942. The goal was to split the McCarren coalition. For years critics charged that Humphrey supported concentration camps. The ploy failed to stop the new law; the Senate voted 57 to 10 to overturn Truman's veto. In 1954 he proposed to make membership in the Communist Party a felony. It was another ploy to derail a bill that would hurt labor unions. Humphrey's proposal did not pass.
Humphrey was the author of the first humane slaughter bill introduced in the U.S. Congress and chief Senate sponsor of the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958.
Humphrey chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament (84th and 85th Congresses). In February 1960 he introduced a bill to establish a National Peace Agency. With another former pharmacist, Representative Carl Durham, Humphrey cosponsored the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, defining two specific categories for medications, legend (prescription) and over-the-counter (OTC).
As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act that year. He was a lead author of its text, alongside Senate Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.
While President John F. Kennedy is often credited for creating the Peace Corps, Humphrey introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years before Kennedy's University of Michigan speech. A trio of journalists wrote of Humphrey in 1969 that "few men in American politics have achieved so much of lasting significance. It was Humphrey, not Senator [Everett] Dirksen, who played the crucial part in the complex parliamentary games that were needed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was Humphrey, not John Kennedy, who first proposed the Peace Corps. The Food for Peace program was Humphrey's idea, and so was Medicare, passed sixteen years after he first proposed it. He worked for Federal aid to education from 1949, and for a nuclear-test ban treaty from 1956. These are the solid monuments of twenty years of effective work for liberal causes in the Senate." President Johnson once said that "Most Senators are minnows ... Hubert Humphrey is among the whales."
In his autobiography, The Education of a Public Man, Humphrey wrote:
There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought the idea was silly and unworkable. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.
On April 9, 1950, Humphrey predicted that President Truman would sign a $4 billion housing bill and charge Republicans with having removed the bill's main middle-income benefits during Truman's tours of the Midwest and Northwest the following month.
On January 7, 1951, Humphrey joined Senator Paul Douglas in calling for an $80 billion federal budget to combat Communist aggression along with a stiff tax increase to prevent borrowing.
In a January 1951 letter to President Truman, Humphrey wrote of the necessity of a commission akin to the Fair Employment Practices Commission that would be used to end discrimination in defense industries and predicted that establishing such a commission by executive order would be met with high approval by Americans.
On June 18, 1953, Humphrey introduced a resolution calling for the US to urge free elections in Germany in response to the anti-Communist riots in East Berlin.
In December 1958, after receiving a message from Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to the Soviet Union, Humphrey returned insisting that the message was not negative toward America. In February 1959, Humphrey said American newspapers should have ignored Khrushchev's comments calling him a purveyor of fairy tales. In a September address to the National Stationery and Office Equipment Association, Humphrey called for further inspection of Khrushchev's "live and let live" doctrine and maintained the Cold War could be won by using American "weapons of peace".
In June 1963, Humphrey accompanied his longtime friend labor leader Walter Reuther on a trip to Harpsund, the Swedish Prime Minister's summer country retreat, to meet with European socialist leaders for an exchange of ideas. Among the European leaders who met with Humphrey and Reuther were the prime ministers of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as well as future German chancellor Willy Brandt.
Presidential and vice-presidential ambitions (1952–1964)
Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice before his election to the Vice Presidency in 1964. The first time was as Minnesota's favorite son in 1952; he received only 26 votes on the first ballot. The second time was in 1960. In between these two bids, Humphrey was part of the free-for-all for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.
In 1960, Humphrey ran for the nomination against fellow Senator John F. Kennedy in the primaries. Their first meeting was in the Wisconsin Primary, where Kennedy's well-organized and well-funded campaign overcame Humphrey's energetic but poorly funded effort. Humphrey believed defeating Kennedy in Wisconsin would weaken and slow the momentum of the latter's campaign. Kennedy's attractive brothers, sisters, and wife Jacqueline combed the state for votes. At one point Humphrey memorably complained that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store". Humphrey later wrote in his memoirs that "Muriel and I and our 'plain folks' entourage were no match for the glamour of Jackie Kennedy and the other Kennedy women, for Peter Lawford ... and Frank Sinatra singing their commercial 'High Hopes'. Jack Kennedy brought family and Hollywood to Wisconsin. The people loved it and the press ate it up." Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, but by a smaller margin than anticipated. Some commentators argued that Kennedy's victory margin had come almost entirely from areas with large Roman Catholic populations, and that Protestants had supported Humphrey. As a result, Humphrey refused to quit the race and decided to run against Kennedy again in the West Virginia primary. According to one biographer "Humphrey thought his chances were good in West Virginia, one of the few states that had backed him in his losing race for vice-president four years earlier ... West Virginia was more rural than urban, [which] seemed to invite Humphrey's folksy stump style. The state, moreover, was a citadel of labor. It was depressed; unemployment had hit hard; and coal miners' families were hungry. Humphrey felt he could talk to such people, who were 95% Protestant (Humphrey was a Congregationalist) and deep-dyed Bible-belters besides."
Kennedy chose to meet the religion issue head-on. In radio broadcasts, he carefully redefined the issue from Catholic versus Protestant to tolerance versus intolerance. Kennedy's appeal placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive, and Kennedy attacked him with a vengeance. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., the son of the former president, stumped for Kennedy in West Virginia and raised the issue of Humphrey's failure to serve in the armed forces in World War II. Roosevelt told audiences, "I don't know where he [Humphrey] was in World War Two," and handed out flyers charging that Humphrey was a draft dodger. Historian Robert Dallek has written that Robert F. Kennedy, who was serving as his brother's campaign manager, came into "possession of information that Humphrey may have sought military deferments during World War Two ... he pressed Roosevelt to use this." Humphrey believed Roosevelt's draft-dodger claim "had been approved by Bobby [Kennedy], if not Jack". The claims that Humphrey was a draft dodger were inaccurate, because during the war Humphrey had "tried and failed to get into the [military] service because of physical disabilities". After the West Virginia primary, Roosevelt sent Humphrey a written apology and retraction. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Roosevelt "felt that he had been used, blaming [the draft-dodger charge] on Robert Kennedy's determination to win at any cost ... Roosevelt said later that it was the biggest political mistake of his career."
Short on funds, Humphrey could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation. He traveled around the state in a rented bus while Kennedy and his staff flew in a large, family-owned airplane. According to his biographer Carl Solberg, Humphrey spent only $23,000 on the West Virginia primary while Kennedy's campaign privately spent $1.5 million, well over their official estimate of $100,000. Unproven accusations claimed that the Kennedys had bought the West Virginia primary by bribing county sheriffs and other local officials to give Kennedy the vote. Humphrey later wrote, "as a professional politician I was able to accept and indeed respect the efficacy of the Kennedy campaign. But underneath the beautiful exterior, there was an element of ruthlessness and toughness that I had trouble either accepting or forgetting." Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly in West Virginia with 60.8% of the vote. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was leaving the race. By winning West Virginia, Kennedy overcame the belief that Protestant voters would not elect a Catholic to the presidency and thus sewed up the Democratic nomination.
Humphrey won the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which Kennedy did not enter. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, he received 41 votes even though he was no longer a candidate.
Vice presidential campaign
Humphrey's defeat in 1960 had a profound influence on his thinking; after the primaries he told friends that, as a relatively poor man in politics, he was unlikely to ever become President unless he served as Vice President first. Humphrey believed that only in this way could he attain the funds, nationwide organization, and visibility he would need to win the Democratic nomination. So as the 1964 presidential campaign began, Humphrey made clear his interest in becoming Lyndon Johnson's running mate. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson kept the three likely vice-presidential candidates, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Humphrey, as well as the rest of the nation, in suspense before announcing his choice of Humphrey with much fanfare, praising his qualifications at considerable length before announcing his name.
The following day Humphrey's acceptance speech overshadowed Johnson's own acceptance address:
In an address before labor leaders in Youngstown, Ohio on September 7, 1964, Humphrey said the labor movement had "more at stake in this election than almost any other segment of society". In Jamesburg, New Jersey on September 10, Humphrey remarked that Goldwater had a "record of retreat and reaction" when it came to issues of urban housing. During a September 12 Denver Democratic rally, Humphrey charged Goldwater with having rejected programs that most Americans and members of his own party supported. At a Santa Fe September 13 rally, Humphrey said the Goldwater-led Republican Party was seeking "to divide America so that they may conquer" and that Goldwater would pinch individuals in his reduction of government. On September 16, Humphrey said the Americans for Democratic Action supported the Johnson administration's economic sanctions against Cuba, and that the organization wanted to see a free Cuban government. The following day in San Antonio, Texas, Humphrey said Goldwater opposed programs favored by most Texans and Americans.
During a September 27 appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, Humphrey said the Kennedy administration had led America in a prosperous direction and called for voters to issue a referendum with their vote against "those who seek to replace the Statue of Liberty with an iron-padlocked gate."
At Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on October 2, Humphrey said the general election would give voters a choice between his running mate and a candidate "who curses the darkness and never lights a candle". During an October 9 Jersey City, New Jersey appearance, Humphrey responded to critics of the administration, who he called "sick and tired Americans", by touting the accomplishments of both Kennedy's and Johnson's presidencies. In Tampa, Florida on October 18, a week after the resignation of Walter Jenkins amid a scandal, Humphrey said he was unaware of any potential security leaks relating to the case. In Minneapolis on October 24, Humphrey listed the censure vote toward Senator Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights bill, and the nuclear test ban treaty as "three great issues of conscience to come before the United States Senate in the past decade" that Goldwater had voted incorrectly on as a Senator. In an October 26 speech in Chicago, Humphrey called Goldwater "neither a Republican nor a Democrat" and "a radical".
The Johnson-Humphrey ticket won the election overwhelmingly, with 486 electoral votes out of 538. Only five Southern states and Goldwater's home state of Arizona supported the Republican ticket. In October Humphrey had predicted that the ticket would win by a large margin but not carry every state.
Vice President-elect of the United States
Soon after winning the election, Humphrey and Johnson went to LBJ ranch near Stonewall, Texas. On November 6, 1964, Humphrey traveled to the Virgin Islands for a two-week vacation. News stations aired taped remarks in which Humphrey stated that he had not discussed with Johnson what his role would be as vice president and that national campaigns should be reduced by four weeks. In a November 20 interview, Humphrey announced he would resign his Senate seat midway through the next month so that Walter Mondale could assume the position.
On December 10, 1964, Humphrey met with Johnson in the Oval Office, the latter charging the vice president-elect with "developing a publicity machine extraordinaire and of always wanting to get his name in the paper." Johnson showed Humphrey a George Reed memo with the allegation that the president would die within six months from an already acquired fatal heart disease. The same day, during a speech in Washington, Johnson announced Humphrey would have the position of giving assistance to governmental civil rights programs.
On January 19, 1965, the day before the inauguration, Humphrey told the Democratic National Committee that the party had unified because of the national consensus established by the presidential election.
Vice Presidency (1965–1969)
Humphrey took office on January 20, 1965, ending the 14-month vacancy of the Vice President of the United States, which had remained empty when then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was an early skeptic of the then growing Vietnam War. Following a successful Viet Cong hit-and-run attack on a US military installation at Pleiku on February 7, 1965 (where 7 Americans were killed and 109 wounded), Humphrey returned from Georgia to Washington D.C., to attempt to prevent further escalation. He told President Johnson that bombing North Vietnam was not a solution to the problems in South Vietnam, but that bombing would require the injection of US ground forces into South Vietnam to protect the airbases. Presciently, he noted that a military solution in Vietnam would take several years, well beyond the next election cycle. In response to this advice, President Johnson punished Humphrey by treating him coldly and restricting him from his inner circle for a number of months, until Humphrey decided to "get back on the team" and fully support the war effort.
As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War. Many of Humphrey's liberal friends and allies abandoned him because of his refusal to publicly criticize Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Humphrey's critics later learned that Johnson had threatened Humphrey – Johnson told Humphrey that if he publicly criticized his policies, he would destroy Humphrey's chances to become President by opposing his nomination at the next Democratic Convention. However, Humphrey's critics were vocal and persistent: even his nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him. The nickname referred not to his military hawkishness, but rather to his crusading for social welfare and civil rights programs. After his narrow defeat in the 1968 presidential election, Humphrey wrote that "After four years as Vice-President ... I had lost some of my personal identity and personal forcefulness. ... I ought not to have let a man [Johnson] who was going to be a former President dictate my future."
While he was Vice President, Hubert Humphrey was the subject of a satirical song by songwriter/musician Tom Lehrer entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?" The song addressed how some liberals and progressives felt let down by Humphrey, who had become a much more mute figure as Vice President than he had been as a senator. The song goes "Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing? Once he shone on his own, now he sits home alone and waits for the phone to ring. Once a fiery liberal spirit, ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it. ..."
During these years Humphrey was a repeated and favorite guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He also struck up a friendship with Frank Sinatra, who supported his campaign for president in 1968 before his conversion to the Republican party in the early 1970s, and was perhaps most on notice in the fall of 1977 when Sinatra was the star attraction and host of a tribute to a then-ailing Humphrey. He also appeared on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1973.
On April 15, 1965, Humphrey delivered an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, pledging the incumbent session of Congress would "do more for the lasting long-term health of this nation" since the initial session in office at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt assuming the presidency in 1933 and predicting 13 major measures of President Johnson's administration would be passed ahead of the session's conclusion. In mid-May 1965, Humphrey traveled to Dallas, Texas for an off-the-record discussion with donors of President Johnson's campaign. During the visit, Humphrey was imposed tight security as a result of the JFK assassination a year and a half prior and the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald was placed under surveillance by Police Chief Cato Hightower.
During a May 31, 1966 appearance at Huron College, Humphrey said the US should not expect "either friendship or gratitude" in helping poorer countries. At a September 22, 1966 Jamesburg, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Humphrey said the Vietnam War would be shortened if the US stayed firm and hastened the return of troops: "We are making a decision not only to defend Vietnam, we are defending the United States of America."
During a May 1967 news conference, Humphrey said American anger toward Vietnam was losing traction and that he could see a growth in popularity for President Johnson since a low point five months prior. During an August 2, 1967 appearance in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey proposed each state consider forming peacekeeping councils focused on preventing violence, gaining community cooperation, and listening to "the voices of those who have gone unheard."
On November 4, 1967, Humphrey cited Malaysia as an example of what Vietnam could resemble post a Viet Cong defeat while in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The following day, Vice President Humphrey requested Indonesia attempt mediation in the Vietnam War during a meeting with Suharto at Merdeka palace. On December 7, Vice President Humphrey said in an interview that the Viet Cong could potentially be the factor in creating a political compromise with the government of Saigon.
Civil rights
In February 1965, President Johnson appointed Humphrey to the chairmanship of the President's Council on Equal Opportunity. The position and board had been proposed by Humphrey, who told Johnson that the board should consist of members of the Cabinet and federal agency leaders and serve multiple roles: assisting agency cooperation, creating federal program consistency, using advanced planning to avoid potential racial unrest, creating public policy, and meeting with local and state level leaders. During his tenure, he appointed Wiley A Branton as executive director. During the first meeting of the group on March 3, Humphrey stated the budget was US$289,000 and pledged to ensure vigorous work by the small staff. Following the Watts riots in August of that year, Johnson downsized Humphrey's role as the administration's expert on civil rights. Dallek wrote the shift in role was in line with the change in policy the Johnson administration underwent in response to "the changing political mood in the country on aid to African Americans." In a private meeting with Joseph Califano on September 18, 1965, President Johnson stated his intent to remove Humphrey from the post of "point man" on civil rights within the administration, believing the vice president was tasked with enough work. Days later, Humphrey met with Johnson, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and White House Counsel Lee C. White. Johnson told Humphrey he would shorten his role within the administration's civil rights policies and pass a portion to Katzenbach, Califano writing that Humphrey agreed to go along with the plan reluctantly.
In an August 1967 speech at a county officials national convention in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey called for the establishment of a Marshall Plan that would curb poverty in the United States as well as address racial violence, and advocated for the creation of civil peace councils that would counter rioting. He said the councils should include representation from all minority groups and religions, state governments, the National Guard, and law enforcement agencies and that the United States would see itself out of trouble only when law and order was reestablished.
Foreign trips
December 1965 saw the beginning of Humphrey's tour of eastern countries, saying he hoped to have "cordial and frank discussions" ahead of the trip beginning when asked about the content of the talks. During a December 29 meeting with Prime Minister of Japan Eisaku Satō, Humphrey asked the latter for support on achieving peace in the Vietnam War and said it was a showing of strength that the United States wanted a peaceful ending rather than a display of weakness.
Humphrey began a European tour in late-March 1967 to mend frazzled relations and indicated that he was "ready to explain and ready to listen." On April 2, 1967, Vice President Humphrey met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson. Ahead of the meeting, Humphrey said they would discuss multiple topics including the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, European events, Atlantic alliance strengthening, and "the situation in the Far East". White House Press Secretary George Christian said five days later that he had received reports from Vice President Humphrey indicating his tour of the European countries was "very constructive" and said President Johnson was interested in the report as well. While Humphrey was in Florence, Italy on April 1, 1967, 23-year-old Giulio Stocchi threw eggs at the Vice President and missed. He was seized by American bodyguards who turned him in to Italian officers. In Brussels, Belgium on April 9, demonstrators led by communists threw rotten eggs and fruits at Vice President Humphrey's car, also hitting several of his bodyguards. In late-December 1967, Vice President Humphrey began touring Africa.
1968 presidential election
As 1968 began, it looked as if President Johnson, despite the rapidly decreasing approval rating of his Vietnam War policies, would easily win the Democratic nomination for a second time. Humphrey was widely expected to remain Johnson's running mate for reelection in 1968. Johnson was challenged by Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform. With the backing of out-of-state anti-war college students and activists while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy, who was not expected to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, nearly defeated Johnson, finishing with a surprising 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49%. A few days after the New Hampshire primary, after months of contemplation and originally intending to support Johnson's bid for reelection, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York also entered the race on an anti-war platform. On March 31, 1968, a week before the Wisconsin primary, where polls showed a strong standing for McCarthy, President Johnson stunned the nation by withdrawing from his race for a second full term.
Following the announcement from Johnson, Humphrey announced his presidential candidacy on April 27, 1968. Declaring his candidacy in a speech in Washington, DC alongside Senators Fred Harris of Oklahoma and Walter Mondale of Minnesota (who both served as the co-chairs to his campaign), Humphrey stated:
Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.
Also in his speech, Humphrey supported President Johnson's Vietnam initiative he proposed during his address to the nation four weeks earlier; partially halting the bombings in North Vietnam, while sending an additional 13,500 troops and increasing the Department of Defense's budget by 4% over the next fiscal year. Later in the campaign, Humphrey opposed a proposal by Senators McCarthy and George McGovern of South Dakota to the Democratic Convention's Policy Committee, calling for an immediate end to the bombings in Vietnam, an early withdrawal of troops and setting talks for a coalition government with the Viet Cong.
Many people saw Humphrey as Johnson's stand-in; he won major backing from the nation's labor unions and other Democratic groups troubled by young antiwar protesters and the social unrest around the nation. A group of British journalists wrote that Humphrey, despite his liberal record on civil rights and support for a nuclear test-ban treaty, "had turned into an arch-apologist for the war, who was given to trotting around Vietnam looking more than a little silly in olive-drab fatigues and a forage cap. The man whose name had been a by-word in the South for softness toward Negroes had taken to lecturing black groups ... the wild-eyed reformer had become the natural champion of every conservative element in the Democratic Party." Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states by gaining the support of Democratic officeholders who were elected delegates to the Democratic Convention. By June, McCarthy won in Oregon and Pennsylvania, while Kennedy had won in Indiana and Nebraska, though Humphrey was the front runner as he led the delegate count. The California primary was crucial for Kennedy's campaign, as a McCarthy victory would have prevented Kennedy from reaching the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. On June 4, 1968, Kennedy defeated McCarthy by less than 4% in the winner-take-all California primary. But the nation was shocked yet again when Senator Kennedy was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. After the assassination of Kennedy, Humphrey suspended his campaign for two weeks.
Chicago riots and party fallout
Humphrey did not enter any of the 13 state primary elections, but won the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for antiwar candidates. The delegates defeated the peace plank by 1,567 to 1,041. Humphrey selected as his running mate Senator Ed Muskie of Maine. Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheatre convention hall, and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other antiwar candidates. Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago police attacked and beat these protesters, most of them young college students, which amplified the growing feelings of unrest among the public.
Humphrey's inaction during these incidents, Johnson's and Daley's behind-the-scenes maneuvers, public backlash against Humphrey's winning the nomination without entering a single primary, and Humphrey's refusal to meet McCarthy halfway on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's refusal to fully endorse him, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic Party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of Johnson's unpopularity, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that year, all contributed to his loss to former Vice President Nixon. Nevertheless, as Wallace lost support among white union members, Humphrey regained strength and the final polls showed a close race. Humphrey reversed his Vietnam policy, called for peace talks, and won back some of the antiwar Democrats.
Nixon won the electoral college and the election. Humphrey lost the popular vote by less than one percent, with 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839) for Humphrey, and 13.5% (9,901,118) for Wallace. Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes, Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried five states and 46 electoral votes. In his concession speech, Humphrey said, "I have done my best. I have lost; Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will."
Post-Vice Presidency (1969–1978)
Teaching and return to the Senate
After leaving the Vice Presidency, Humphrey taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and served as chairman of the board of consultants at the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
On February 11, 1969, Humphrey met privately with Mayor Richard J. Daley and denied ever being "at war" with Daley during a press conference later in the day. In March, Humphrey declined answering questions on the Johnson administration being either involved or privy to the cessation of bombing of the north in Vietnam during an interview on Issues and Answers. At a press conference on June 2, 1969, Humphrey backed Nixon's peace efforts, dismissing the notion that he was not seeking an end to the war. In early July, Humphrey traveled to Finland for a private visit. Later that month, Humphrey returned to Washington after visiting Europe, a week after McCarthy declared he would not seek reelection, Humphrey declining to comment amid speculation he intended to return to the Senate. During the fall, Humphrey arranged to meet with President Nixon through United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Humphrey saying the day after the meeting that President Nixon had "expressed his appreciation on my attitude to his effort on Vietnam." On August 3, Humphrey said that Russia was buying time to develop ballistic missile warheads to catch up with the United States and that security was the "overriding concern" of the Soviet Union. Days later, Humphrey repudiated efforts against President Nixon's anti-ballistic missile system: "I have a feeling that they [opponents of the ABM] were off chasing rabbits when a tiger is loose." During October, Humphrey spoke before the AFL-CIO convention delegates, charging President Nixon's economic policies with "putting Americans out of work without slowing inflation." On October 10, Humphrey stated his support for Nixon's policies in Vietnam and that he believed "the worst thing that we can do is to try to undermine the efforts of the President." At a December 21 press conference, Humphrey said President Nixon was a participant in the "politics of polarization" and could not seek unity on one hand but have divisive agents on the other. On December 26, Humphrey responded to a claim from former President Johnson that Humphrey had been cost the election by his own call for a stop to North Vietnam bombing, saying he did what he "thought was right and responsible at Salt Lake City."
On January 4, 1970, Humphrey said the United States should cease tests of nuclear weapons during the continued conversations for potential strategic arms limitations between the United States and the Soviet Union while speaking to the National Retail Furniture association at the Palmer House. In February, Humphrey predicted Nixon would withdraw 75,000 or more troops prior to the year's midterm elections and the main issue would be the economy during an interview: "The issue of 1970 is the economy. Some of my fellow Democrats don't believe this. But this is a fact." On February 23, Humphrey disclosed his recommendation to Larry O'Brien for the latter to return to being Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a Humphrey spokesman reporting that Humphrey wanted a quick settlement to the issue of the DNC chairmanship. Solberg wrote of President Nixon's April 1970 Cambodian Campaign as having done away with Humphrey's hopes that the war be taken out of political context. In May, Humphrey pledged to do all that he was capable of to provide additional war planes to Israel and stress the issue to American leaders. Amid an August 11 address to the American Bar Association luncheon meeting, Humphrey called for liberals to cease defending campus radicals and militants and align with law and order.
Humphrey had not planned to return to political life, but an unexpected opportunity changed his mind. McCarthy, who was up for reelection in 1970, realized that he had only a slim chance of winning even re-nomination for the Minnesota seat because he had angered his party by opposing Johnson and Humphrey for the 1968 presidential nomination, and declined to run. Humphrey won the nomination, defeated Republican Congressman Clark MacGregor, and returned to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1971. Ahead of resuming his senatorial duties, Humphrey had a November 16, 1970 White House meeting with President Nixon as part of a group of newly elected senators invited to meet with the president. He was reelected in 1976, and remained in office until his death. In a rarity in politics, Humphrey held both Senate seats from his state (Class I and Class II) at different times. During his return to the Senate he served in the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and a portion of the 95th Congress. He served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in the 94th Congress.
Fourth Senate term
L. Edward Purcell wrote that upon returning to the Senate, Humphrey found himself "again a lowly junior senator with no seniority" and that he resolved to create credibility in the eyes of liberals.
On May 3, 1971, after the Americans for Democratic Action adopted a resolution demanding President Nixon's impeachment, Humphrey commented that they were acting "more out of emotion and passion than reason and prudent judgment" and that the request was irresponsible. On May 21, Humphrey said ending hunger and malnutrition in the U.S. was "a moral obligation" during a speech to International Food Service Manufacturers Association members at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. In June, Humphrey delivered the commencement address at the University of Bridgeport and days later said that he believed Nixon was interested in seeing a peaceful end to the Vietnam War "as badly as any senator or anybody else." On July 14, while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control, Humphrey proposed amending the defense procurement bill to place in escrow all funds for creation and usage of multiple‐missile warheads in the midst of continued arms limitations talks. Humphrey said members of the Nixon administration needed to remember "when they talk of a tough negotiating position, they are going to get a tough response." On September 6, Humphrey rebuked the Nixon administration's wage price freeze, saying it was based on trickle-down policies and advocating "percolate up" as a replacement, while speaking at a United Rubber Workers gathering. On October 26, Humphrey stated his support for removing barriers to voting registration and authorizing students to establish voting residences in their college communities, rebuking the refusal of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell the previous month to take a role in shaping voter registration laws as applicable to new voters. On December 24, 1971, Humphrey accused the Nixon administration of turning its back on the impoverished in the rural parts of the United States, citing few implementations of the relief recommendations of the 1967 National Advisory Commission; in another statement he said only 3 of the 150 recommendations had been implemented. On December 27, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was responsible for an escalation of the Southeast Asia war and requested complete cessation of North Vietnam bombing while responding to antiwar protestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In January 1972, Humphrey stated the U.S. would be out of the Vietnam War by that point had he been elected President, saying Nixon was taking longer to withdraw American troops from the country than it took to defeat Adolf Hitler. On May 20, Humphrey said Nixon's proposal to limit schoolchildren busing was "insufficient in the amount of aid needed for our children, deceptive to the American people, and insensitive to the laws and the Constitution of this nation", in a reversal of his prior stance, while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During a May 30 appearance in Burbank, California, Humphrey stated his support for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam despite an invasion by North Vietnam.
In January 1973, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was plotting to eliminate a school milk program in the upcoming fiscal year budget during a telephone interview. On February 18, 1973, Humphrey said the Middle East could possibly usher in peace following the Vietnam War ending along with American troops withdrawing from Indochina during an appearance at the New York Hilton. In August 1973, Humphrey called on Nixon to schedule a meeting with nations exporting and importing foods as part of an effort to both create a worldwide policy on food and do away with food hoarding. After Nixon's dismissal of Archibald Cox, Humphrey said he found "the whole situation entirely depressing." Three days after Cox's dismissal, during a speech to the AFL-CIO convention on October 23, Humphrey declined to state his position on whether Nixon should be impeached, citing that his congressional position would likely cause him to have to play a role in determining Nixon's fate. On December 21, Humphrey disclosed his request of federal tax deductions of US$199,153 for the donation of his vice presidential papers to the Minnesota State Historical Society.
In early January 1974, Humphrey checked into the Bethesda Naval Hospital for tests regarding a minute tumor of the bladder. His physician Edgar Berman said the next day that Humphrey "looks fine and feels fine" and was expected to leave early the following week. In an interview conducted on March 29, 1974, Humphrey concurred with Senator Mike Mansfield's assessment from the prior day that the House of Representatives had enough votes to impeach Nixon. Humphrey was reportedly pleased by Nixon's resignation.
In an April 1975 news conference at the spring education conference of the United Federation of Teachers, Humphrey cited the need for a national department of education, a national education trust fund, and a federal government provision for a third of America's educational expenses. He said the Ford administration had no educational policy and noted the United States was the only industrialized country without a separate national education department. In May, Humphrey testified at the trial of his former campaign manager Jack L. Chestnut, admitting that as a candidate he sought the support of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., but saying he was not privy to the illegal contributions Chestnut was accused of taking from the organization. Later that month, Humphrey was one of 19 senators to originate a letter stating the expectation of 75 senators that Ford would submit a foreign aid request to Congress meeting the "urgent military and economic needs" of Israel. In August, after the United States Court of Appeals ruled that Ford had no authority to continue levying fees of $2 a barrel on imported oil, Humphrey hailed the decision as "the best news we've heard on the inflation front in a long time" and urged Ford to accept the decision because the price reduction on oil and oil‐related products would benefit the national economy. In October, after Sara Jane Moore's assassination attempt on Ford, Humphrey joined former presidential candidates Barry Goldwater, Edmund Muskie, and George McGovern in urging Ford and other presidential candidates to restrain their campaigning the following year to prevent future attempts on their lives.
In October 1976, Humphrey was admitted to a hospital for the removal of a cancerous bladder, predicted his victory in his reelection bid and advocated for members of his party to launch efforts to increase voter turnout upon his release.
1972 presidential election
On November 4, 1970, shortly after being reelected to the Senate, Humphrey stated his intention to take on the role of a "harmonizer" within the Democratic Party to minimize the possibility of potential presidential candidates within the party lambasting each other prior to deciding to run in the then-upcoming election, dismissing that he was an active candidate at that time. In December 1971, Humphrey made his second trip to New Jersey in under a month, talking with a plurality of county leaders at the Robert Treat Hotel: "I told them I wanted their support. I said I'd rather work with them than against them."
In 1972, Humphrey once again ran for the Democratic nomination for president, announcing his candidacy on January 10, 1972 during a twenty-minute speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time of the announcement, Humphrey said he was running on a platform of the removal of troops from Vietnam and a revitalization of the United States economy. He drew upon continuing support from organized labor and the African-American and Jewish communities, but remained unpopular with college students because of his association with the Vietnam War, even though he had altered his position in the years since his 1968 defeat. Humphrey initially planned to skip the primaries, as he had in 1968. Even after he revised this strategy he still stayed out of New Hampshire, a decision that allowed McGovern to emerge as the leading challenger to Muskie in that state. Humphrey did win some primaries, including those in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, but was defeated by McGovern in several others, including the crucial California primary. Humphrey also was out-organized by McGovern in caucus states and was trailing in delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. His hopes rested on challenges to the credentials of some of the McGovern delegates. For example, the Humphrey forces argued that the winner-take-all rule for the California primary violated procedural reforms intended to produce a better reflection of the popular vote, the reason that the Illinois delegation was bounced. The effort failed, as several votes on delegate credentials went McGovern's way, guaranteeing his victory.
1976 presidential election
On April 22, 1974, Humphrey said that he would not enter the upcoming Democratic presidential primary for the 1976 Presidential election. Humphrey said at the time that he was urging fellow Senator and Minnesotan Walter Mondale to run, despite believing that Ted Kennedy would enter the race as well. Leading up to the election cycle, Humphrey also said, "Here's a time in my life when I appear to have more support than at any other time in my life. But it's too financially, politically, and physically debilitating – and I'm just not going to do it." In December 1975, a Gallup poll was released showing Humphrey and Ronald Reagan as the leading Democratic and Republican candidates for the following year's presidential election.
On April 12, 1976, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party State Senator James P. Dugan said the selection of a majority of uncommitted delegates could be interpreted as a victory for Humphrey, who had indicated his availability as a presidential candidate for the convention. Humphrey announced his choice to not enter the New Jersey primary nor authorize any committees to work to support him during an April 29, 1976 appearance in the Senate Caucus Room. Even after Jimmy Carter had won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, many still wanted Humphrey to announce his availability for a draft. However, he did not do so, and Carter easily secured the nomination on the first round of balloting. Humphrey had learned that he had terminal cancer, prompting him to sit the race out.
Humphrey attended the November 17, 1976 meeting between President-elect Carter and Democratic congressional leaders in which Carter sought out support for a proposal to have the president's power to reorganize the government reinstated with potential to be vetoed by Congress.
Fifth Senate term
Humphrey attended the May 3, 1977 White House meeting on legislative priorities. Humphrey told President Carter that the U.S. would enter a period of high unemployment without an economic stimulus and noted that in "every period in our history, a rise in unemployment has been accompanied by a rise in inflation". Humphrey stated a preventative health care program would be the only way for the Carter administration to not have to fund soaring health costs. In July 1977, after the Senate began debating approval for funding of the neutron bomb, Humphrey stated that the White House had agreed to release the impact statement, a requirement for Congressional funding of a new weapon.
Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate (1977–1978)
In 1974, along with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, Humphrey authored the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, the first attempt at full employment legislation. The original bill proposed to guarantee full employment to all citizens over 16 and set up a permanent system of public jobs to meet that goal. A watered-down version called the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act passed the House and Senate in 1978. It set the goal of 4 percent unemployment and 3 percent inflation and instructed the Federal Reserve Board to try to produce those goals when making policy decisions.
Humphrey ran for Majority Leader after the 1976 election but lost to Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The Senate honored Humphrey by creating the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate for him. On August 16, 1977, Humphrey revealed he was suffering from terminal bladder cancer. On October 25 of that year, he addressed the Senate, and on November 3, Humphrey became the first person other than a member of the House or the President of the United States to address the House of Representatives in session. President Carter honored him by giving him command of Air Force One for his final trip to Washington on October 23. One of Humphrey's final speeches contained the lines "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped", which is sometimes described as the "liberals' mantra".
Death and funeral
Humphrey spent his last weeks calling old political acquaintances. One call was to Richard Nixon inviting him to his upcoming funeral, which Nixon accepted. Staying in the hospital, Humphrey went from room to room, cheering up other patients by telling them jokes and listening to them. On January 13, 1978, he died of bladder cancer at his home in Waverly, Minnesota, at the age of 66.
Humphrey's body lay in state in the rotundas of the U.S. Capitol and the Minnesota State Capitol before being interred at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. His passing overshadowed the death of his colleague from Montana, Senator Lee Metcalf, who had died the day before Humphrey. Old friends and opponents of Humphrey, from Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon to President Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale, paid their final respects. "He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die", said Mondale.
Humphrey's wife Muriel was appointed by Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich to serve in the U.S. Senate until a special election to fill the term was held; she did not seek election to finish her husband's term in office. In 1981 she married Max Brown and took the name Muriel Humphrey Brown. Upon her death in 1998 she was interred next to Humphrey at Lakewood Cemetery.
Honors and legacy
In 1965, Humphrey was made an Honorary Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically African American fraternity.
In 1978, Humphrey received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
He was awarded posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal on June 13, 1979 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 52¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.
There is a statue of him in front of the Minneapolis City Hall.
Humphrey's legacy is bolstered by his early leadership in civil rights, and undermined by his long support of the Vietnam War. His leading biographer Arnold A. Offner says he was "the most successful legislator in the nation's history and a powerful voice for equal justice for all." Offner writes that Humphrey was:
A major force for nearly every important liberal policy initiative....putting civil rights on his party's and the nation's agenda [in 1948] for decades to come. As senator he proposed legislation to effect national health insurance, for aid to poor nations, immigration and income tax reform, a Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the path breaking 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty....[He provided] masterful stewardship of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.
While acknowledging his accomplishments, some historians emphasize that Humphrey was "a flawed, and not entirely likeable, figure who talked too much and neglected his family while pursuing a politics of compromise that owed as much to his vaunting personal ambition as to political pragmatism."
Namesakes
Fellowship
The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which fosters an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding throughout the world.
Buildings and institutions
The Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
The former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome domed stadium in Minneapolis which was home to the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League and the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and its building, the Hubert H. Humphrey Center (formerly Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; changed in January 2011)
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Bridge carrying FL S.R. 520 over the Indian River Lagoon between Cocoa and Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida
The Hubert H. Humphrey Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in Los Angeles, California.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Recreation Center of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in Pacoima, CA.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Auditorium at Doland High School in Doland, South Dakota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Waverly, Minnesota
The Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Portrayals
Franklin Cover in the 1982 television film A Woman Called Golda.
Bradley Whitford in the 2016 television film All the Way.
Doug McKeon in the 2017 film LBJ.
Electoral history
See also
Politics of Minnesota
Humphrey's son, Hubert H. Humphrey III and grandson Buck Humphrey are also Minnesotan politicians.
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
Humphrey objection
Notes
References
Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979. A physician's personal account of his friendship with Humphrey from 1957 until his death in 1978.
Boomhower, Ray E. "Fighting the Good Fight: John Bartlow Martin and Hubert Humphrey's 1968 Presidential Campaign." Indiana Magazine of History (2020) 116#1 pp 1-29. online
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Chester, Lewis, Hodgson, Godfrey, Page, Bruce. An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. online
Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.
Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.
Engelmayer, Sheldon D., and Robert J. Wagman. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. (1978). online
Garrettson, Charles L. III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election That Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993). online
Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, a primary source. online
Johns, Andrew L. The Price of Loyalty: Hubert Humphrey's Vietnam Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).
Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. online
Offner, Arnold, "Hubert Humphrey: The Conscience of the Country," New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Pomper, Gerald. "The nomination of Hubert Humphrey for vice-president." Journal of Politics 28.3 (1966): 639-659. online
Reichard, Gary W. "Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey" Minnesota History 56#2 (1998), pp. 50-67 online
Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York : Norton, 1984. online
Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 352.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. (Reprint)
External links
University of Texas biography
Hubert H. Humphrey Papers are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Humphrey's complete speech texts and a broad sample of his speech sound recordings have been digitzed by the Minnesota Historical Society under a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1964 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Account of 1948 Presidential campaign – includes text of Humphrey's speech at the Democratic National Convention
Oral History Interviews with Hubert H. Humphrey, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Information on Humphrey's thought and influence, including quotations from his speeches and writings.
Hubert H. Humphrey at the Macedonian Baptist Church, San Francisco, May 23, 1972 Photographs by Bruce Jackson of Humphrey on his last campaign.
Radio airchecks/recordings of Hubert H. Humphrey from 1946 to 1978 including interviews, radio appearances, newscasts, 1968 election concession speech, etc.
"Hubert Humphrey, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
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1911 births
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20th-century vice presidents of the United States
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American pharmacists
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American people of English descent
American people of the Vietnam War
Burials at Lakewood Cemetery
Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Cooperative organizers
Deaths from bladder cancer
Deaths from cancer in Minnesota
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
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Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party vice presidents of the United States
Humphrey family
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Candidates in the 1960 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 1964 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 1972 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 1976 United States presidential election
United States senators from Minnesota
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Vice presidents of the United States
American political party founders | false | [
"From March 8 to June 7, 1960, voters of the Democratic Party elected some of the delegates to the 1960 Democratic National Convention. The presidential primaries were inconclusive, as several of the leading contenders did not enter them, but U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy emerged as the strongest candidate and secured the nomination at the Convention, held from July 11 to 15 in Los Angeles.\n\nPrimary race\nRecalling the experience of 1928 Catholic Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith, many wondered if anti-Catholic prejudice would affect Kennedy's chances of winning the nomination and the election in November. To prove his vote-getting ability, Kennedy challenged Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, a liberal, in the Wisconsin primary. Although Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin, the fact that his margin of victory came mostly from heavily Catholic areas left many party bosses unconvinced of Kennedy's appeal to non-Catholic voters. Kennedy next faced Humphrey in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia, where anti-Catholic bigotry was said to be widespread. Humphrey's campaign was low on money and could not compete with the well-organized, well-financed Kennedy team. Kennedy's attractive sisters and brothers combed the state looking for votes, leading Humphrey to complain that he \"felt like an independent merchant running against a chain store.\" On primary day, Kennedy crushed Humphrey with over 60% of the vote. Humphrey withdrew from the race and Kennedy had gained the victory he needed to prove to the party's bosses that a Catholic could win in a non-Catholic state. In the months leading up to the Democratic Convention, Kennedy traveled around the nation persuading delegates from various states to support him. However, as the Convention opened, Kennedy was still a few dozen votes short of victory.\n\nAlthough Kennedy won primaries by comfortable margin, his main opponent, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who did not participate in primaries, had a very strong base in party establishment and gained many delegates. Johnson did not join any primary, but was a write-in.\n\nCandidates \nThe following political leaders were candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination:\n\nMajor candidates\nThese candidates participated in multiple state primaries or were included in multiple major national polls.\n\nCompeting in primaries\n\nBypassing primaries\nThe following candidates did not place their name directly on the ballot for any state's presidential primary, but may have sought to influence to selection of un-elected delegates or sought the support of uncommitted delegates.\n\nFavorite sons\nThe following candidates ran only in their home state's primary or caucus for the purpose of controlling its delegate slate at the convention and did not appear to be considered national candidates by the media.\n\nGovernor Ross Barnett of Mississippi\nGovernor Pat Brown of California (pledged support to Kennedy)\nGovernor Michael DiSalle of Ohio (pledged support to Kennedy)\nGovernor Herschel Loveless of Iowa\nGeorge H. McLain of California\nAlbert S. Porter of Ohio\nSenator George Smathers of Florida\n\nDeclined to run\nThe following persons were listed in two or more major national polls or were the subject of media speculation surrounding their potential candidacy, but declined to actively seek the nomination.\n\nSenator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania\nFormer Governor Frank G. Clement of Tennessee\nGovernor Orval Faubus of Arkansas\nSenator Albert Gore of Tennessee\nFormer Governor W. Averell Harriman of New York\nSenator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee\nGovernor Edmund Muskie of Maine\nGovernor G. Mennen Williams of Michigan\n\nPolling\n\nNational polling\n\nTwo-way races \nKennedy v. Kefauver\n\nKennedy v. Johnson\n\nKennedy v. Stevenson\n\nJohnson v. Symington\n\nStatewide polling\n\nWest Virginia\n\nWisconsin\n\nDebates\n\nHumphrey-Kennedy debate\nOn May 4, 1960, Humphrey and Kennedy took part in a televised one-on-one debate at WCHS-TV in Charleston, West Virginia, ahead of the state's primary.\n\nPrimaries\n\nStates by winner\n\nTotal popular vote\n\nTotal number of vote in primaries:\n\ncandidates:\n John F. Kennedy - 1,847,259 (31.43%)\n Hubert Humphrey - 590,410 (10.05%)\n Unpledged delegates - 241,958 (4.12%)\n Wayne Morse - 147,262 (2.51%)\n Adlai Stevenson - 51,833 (0.88%)\n\"Favorite Sons:\"\n Pat Brown - 1,354,031 (23.04%)\n George H. McLain - 646,387 (11.00%)\n George Smathers - 322,235 (5.48%)\n Michael DiSalle - 315,312 (5.37%)\n\nConvention\n\nPresidential nomination \n\nPresidential tally:\n\n John F. Kennedy: 806 (52.89%)\n Lyndon B. Johnson: 409 (26.84%)\n Stuart Symington: 86 (5.64%)\n Adlai Stevenson: 80 (5.25%)\n Robert B. Meyner: 43 (2.82%)\n Hubert Humphrey: 42 (2.76%)\n George Smathers: 30 (1.97%)\n Ross Barnett: 23 (1.51%)\n Herschel C. Loveless: 2 (0.13%)\n Pat Brown, Orval E. Faubus, Albert Dean Rosellini: each 1 vote\n\nVice-presidential nomination \n\nKennedy announced Lyndon B. Johnson as his choice of running-mate on the afternoon following his nomination. Johnson was nominated by acclamation that evening.\n\nSee also\n 1960 Republican Party presidential primaries\n\nNotes\n\nReferences",
"This article lists those who were potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 1968 election. After winning the Democratic presidential nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey asked the convention to nominate Maine Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. The convention overwhelmingly voted to ratify the choice of Muskie, though Julian Bond picked up a scattering of votes. Muskie was surprised by the selection, as he was from a Northeastern state with few electoral votes. Humphrey almost chose Oklahoma Senator Fred R. Harris, but Humphrey decided that Muskie's age, governmental experience, and quiet temperament made him the better candidate. The Humphrey–Muskie ticket ultimately lost to the Nixon–Agnew ticket in the 1968 election. Muskie's place on the national ticket helped make him an early front-runner for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, though Muskie ultimately dropped out of the contest.\n\nPotential running mates\n\nFinalists\nMaine Senator Edmund Muskie\nSan Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto\nOklahoma Senator Fred R. Harris\nNew Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes\nFormer Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance\n\nDeclined\nMassachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy\nRepublican Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York\n\nOthers\nFormer North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford\nAmbassador Sargent Shriver\nHawaii Senator Daniel Inouye https://www.deseret.com/2008/12/7/20289942/lbj-urged-humphrey-to-consider-inouye-for-v-p\n\nResults\n\nSource: Keating Holland, \"All the Votes... Really,\" CNN\n\nSee also\n1968 Democratic National Convention\nDemocratic Party presidential primaries, 1968\n\nReferences\n\nVice presidency of the United States\n1968 United States presidential election\nHubert Humphrey\nTed Kennedy\nNelson A. Rockefeller"
]
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"Hubert Humphrey",
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"Who was the running mate of Humphrey?",
"Ed Muskie,",
"who were the protesters?",
"antiwar demonstrators,",
"Where did Humphrey win the Democratic nomination?",
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]
| C_c69d1ec09c124f158fcdca0296f5b904_1 | What are the factors that caused his loss at the election to Nixon? | 4 | What are the factors that caused Hubert Humphrey to lose the election to Nixon? | Hubert Humphrey | Humphrey and his running mate, Ed Muskie, who had not entered any of the 13 state primary elections, went on to win the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, Illinois even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for anti-war candidates, the delegates had defeated the peace plank by 1,567 3/4 to 1,041 1/4 . Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheater convention hall (closed 1999), and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by the thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other "anti-war" candidates. These protesters - most of them young college students - were attacked and beaten on live television by Chicago police, actions which merely amplified the growing feelings of unrest in the general public. Humphrey's inaction during these activities along with President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's behind the scenes convention influencing, public backlash from securing the presidential nomination without entering a single primary, as well as Humphrey refusal to meet McCarthy half way on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's lack of full endorsement of Humphrey, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of the unpopularity of Johnson, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans when both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated during the election year, were all contributing factors that caused him to eventually lose the election to former Vice President Nixon. Although he lost the election by less than 1% of the popular vote, 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839 votes) for Humphrey, with 13.5% (9,901,118 votes) for George Wallace, Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes. Richard Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried 5 states in the South and 46 electoral votes (270 were needed to win). In his concession speech, Humphrey said: "I have done my best. I have lost, Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will." CANNOTANSWER | Humphrey's inaction during these activities along with President Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's behind the scenes convention influencing, | Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. As a senator he was a major leader of modern liberalism in the United States. As President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, he supported the controversial Vietnam War. An intensely divided Democratic Party nominated him in the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.
Born in Wallace, South Dakota, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota. In 1943, he became a professor of political science at Macalester College and ran a failed campaign for mayor of Minneapolis. He helped found the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) in 1944; the next year he was elected mayor of Minneapolis, serving until 1948 and co-founding the liberal anti-communist group Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and successfully advocated for the inclusion of a proposal to end racial segregation in the 1948 Democratic National Convention's party platform. He was a leader of American liberalism, especially in supporting civil rights. Liberals split over his strong support for the Vietnam War.
Humphrey served three terms in the Senate from 1949 to 1964, and was the Senate Majority Whip for the last four years of his tenure. During this time, he was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the first initiative to create the Peace Corps, and chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament. He unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 1952 and 1960. After Lyndon B. Johnson acceded to the presidency, he chose Humphrey as his running mate, and the Democratic ticket won a landslide victory in the 1964 election.
In March 1968, Johnson made his surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, and Humphrey launched his campaign for the presidency. Loyal to the Johnson administration's policies on the Vietnam War, he received opposition from many within his own party and avoided the primaries to focus on winning the delegates of non-primary states at the Democratic Convention. His delegate strategy succeeded in clinching the nomination, and he chose Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. In the general election, he nearly matched Nixon's tally in the popular vote but lost the electoral vote by a wide margin. After the defeat, he returned to the Senate and served from 1971 until his death in 1978. From 1977 to 1979, he served as Deputy President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
Early life and education
Humphrey was born in a room over his father's drugstore in Wallace, South Dakota. He was the son of Ragnild Kristine Sannes (1883–1973), a Norwegian immigrant, and Hubert Horatio Humphrey Sr. (1882–1949). Humphrey spent most of his youth in Doland, South Dakota, on the Dakota prairie; the town's population was about 600. His father was a licensed pharmacist and merchant who served as mayor and a town council member. The father also served briefly in the South Dakota state legislature and was a South Dakota delegate to the 1944 and 1948 Democratic National Conventions. In the late 1920s, a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both banks in the town closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his store open.
After his son graduated from Doland's high school, Hubert Sr. left Doland and opened a new drugstore in the larger town of Huron, South Dakota (population 11,000), where he hoped to improve his fortunes. Because of the family's financial struggles, Humphrey had to leave the University of Minnesota after just one year. He earned a pharmacist's license from the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado (completing a two-year licensure program in just six months), and helped his father run his store from 1931 to 1937. Both father and son were innovative in finding ways to attract customers: "to supplement their business, the Humphreys had become manufacturers ... of patent medicines for both hogs and humans. A sign featuring a wooden pig was hung over the drugstore to tell the public about this unusual service. Farmers got the message, and it was Humphrey's that became known as the farmer's drugstore." One biographer noted, "while Hubert Jr. minded the store and stirred the concoctions in the basement, Hubert Sr. went on the road selling 'Humphrey's BTV' (Body Tone Veterinary), a mineral supplement and dewormer for hogs, and 'Humphrey's Chest Oil' and 'Humphrey's Sniffles' for two-legged sufferers." Humphrey later wrote, "we made 'Humphrey's Sniffles', a substitute for Vick's Nose Drops. I felt ours were better. Vick's used mineral oil, which is not absorbent, and we used a vegetable-oil base, which was. I added benzocaine, a local anesthetic, so that even if the sniffles didn't get better, you felt it less." The various "Humphrey cures ... worked well enough and constituted an important part of the family income ... the farmers that bought the medicines were good customers." Over time Humphrey's Drug Store became a profitable enterprise and the family again prospered. While living in Huron, Humphrey regularly attended Huron's largest Methodist church and became scoutmaster of the church's Boy Scout Troop 6. He "started basketball games in the church basement ... although his scouts had no money for camp in 1931, Hubert found a way in the worst of that summer's dust-storm grit, grasshoppers, and depression to lead an overnight [outing]."
Humphrey did not enjoy working as a pharmacist, and his dream remained to earn a doctorate in political science and become a college professor. His unhappiness was manifested in "stomach pains and fainting spells", though doctors could find nothing wrong with him. In August 1937, he told his father that he wanted to return to the University of Minnesota. Hubert Sr. tried to convince his son not to leave by offering him a full partnership in the store, but Hubert Jr. refused and told his father "how depressed I was, almost physically ill from the work, the dust storms, the conflict between my desire to do something and be somebody and my loyalty to him ... he replied 'Hubert, if you aren't happy, then you ought to do something about it'." Humphrey returned to the University of Minnesota in 1937 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. He was a member of Phi Delta Chi, a pharmacy fraternity. He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. One of his classmates was Russell B. Long, a future U.S. Senator from Louisiana.
He then became an instructor and doctoral student at the University of Minnesota from 1940 to 1941 (joining the American Federation of Teachers), and was a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Humphrey was a star on the university's debate team; one of his teammates was future Minnesota Governor and US Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. In the 1940 presidential campaign Humphrey and future University of Minnesota president Malcolm Moos debated the merits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, and Wendell Willkie, the Republican nominee, on a Minneapolis radio station. Humphrey supported Roosevelt. Humphrey soon became active in Minneapolis politics, and as a result never finished his PhD.
Marriage and early career
In 1934, Humphrey began dating Muriel Buck, a bookkeeper and graduate of local Huron College. They were married from 1936 until Humphrey's death nearly 42 years later. They had four children: Nancy Faye, Hubert Horatio III, Robert Andrew, and Douglas Sannes. Money was an issue. One biographer noted, "For much of his life he was short of money to live on, and his relentless drive to attain the White House seemed at times like one long, losing struggle to raise enough campaign funds to get there." To help boost his salary, Humphrey frequently took paid outside speaking engagements. Through most of his years as a U.S. senator and vice president, he lived in a middle-class suburban housing development in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In 1958, the Humphreys used their savings and his speaking fees to build a lakefront home in Waverly, Minnesota, about 40 miles west of Minneapolis.
During World War II, Humphrey tried three times to join the armed forces but failed. His first two attempts were to join the Navy, first as a commissioned officer and then as an enlisted man. He was rejected both times for color blindness. He then tried to enlist in the Army in December 1944 but failed the physical exam because of a double hernia, color blindness, and calcification of the lungs. Despite his attempts to join the military, one biographer would note that "all through his political life, Humphrey was dogged by the charge that he was a draft dodger" during the war.
Humphrey led various wartime government agencies and worked as a college instructor. In 1942, he was the state director of new production training and reemployment and chief of the Minnesota war service program. In 1943 he was the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. From 1943 to 1944, Humphrey was a professor of political science at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he headed the university's recently created international debate department, which focused on the international politics of World War II and the creation of the United Nations. After leaving Macalester in the spring of 1944, Humphrey worked as a news commentator for a Minneapolis radio station until 1945.
In 1943, Humphrey made his first run for elective office, for Mayor of Minneapolis. He lost, but his poorly funded campaign still captured over 47% of the vote. In 1944, Humphrey was one of the key players in the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties of Minnesota to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He also worked on President Roosevelt's 1944 reelection campaign. When Minnesota Communists tried to seize control of the new party in 1945, Humphrey became an engaged anticommunist and led the successful fight to oust the Communists from the DFL.
After the war, he again ran for mayor of Minneapolis; this time, he won the election with 61% of the vote. As mayor, he helped ensure the appointment of a friend and previous neighbor, Edwin Ryan, as head of the police department, as he needed a "police chief whose integrity and loyalty would be above reproach." Though they had differing views of labor unions, Ryan and Humphrey worked together to crack down on crime in Minneapolis. Humphrey told Ryan, "I want this town cleaned up and I mean I want it cleaned up now, not a year from now or a month from now, right now", and "You take care of the law enforcement. I'll take care of the politics." Humphrey served as mayor from 1945 to 1948, winning reelection in 1947 by the largest margin in the city's history to that time. Humphrey gained national fame by becoming one of the founders of the liberal anticommunist Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), and he served as chairman from 1949 to 1950. He also reformed the Minneapolis police force. The city had been named the "anti-Semitism capital" of the country, and its small African-American population also faced discrimination. Humphrey's mayoralty is noted for his efforts to fight all forms of bigotry. He formed the Council on Human Relations and established a municipal version of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, making Minneapolis one of only a few cities in the United States to prohibit racial discrimination in the workforce. Humphrey and his publicists were proud that the Council on Human Relations brought together individuals of varying ideologies. In 1960, Humphrey told journalist Theodore H. White, "I was mayor once, in Minneapolis ... a mayor is a fine job, it's the best job there is between being a governor and being the President."
1948 Democratic National Convention
The Democratic Party of 1948 was split between those, mainly Northerners, who thought the federal government should actively protect civil rights for racial minorities, and those, mainly Southerners, who believed that states should be able to enforce traditional racial segregation within their borders.
At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the party platform reflected the division by containing only platitudes supporting civil rights. The incumbent president, Harry S. Truman, had shelved most of his 1946 Commission on Civil Rights's recommendations to avoid angering Southern Democrats. But Humphrey had written in The Progressive magazine, "The Democratic Party must lead the fight for every principle in the report. It is all or nothing."
A diverse coalition opposed the convention's tepid civil rights platform, including anticommunist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John F. Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party. They proposed adding a "minority plank" to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to more aggressive opposition to racial segregation. The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. Also strongly backing the minority plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh. Although seen as conservatives, the urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, with only comparatively small losses from Southern Democrats. Although many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, except for the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney.
Despite Truman's aides' aggressive pressure to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey spoke for the minority plank. In a renowned speech, Humphrey passionately told the Convention, "To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey and his allies succeeded: the convention adopted the pro-civil-rights plank by a vote of 651 to 582.
After the convention's vote, the Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation walked out of the hall. Many Southern Democrats were so enraged at this affront to their "way of life" that they formed the Dixiecrat party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The Dixiecrats' goal was to take Southern states away from Truman and thus cause his defeat. They reasoned that after such a defeat, the national Democratic Party would never again aggressively pursue a pro-civil rights agenda. The move backfired: although the civil rights plank cost Truman the Dixiecrats' support, it gained him many votes from blacks, especially in large northern cities. As a result, Truman won an upset victory over his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. The result demonstrated that the Democratic Party could win presidential elections without the "Solid South" and weakened Southern Democrats. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has written that Humphrey probably did more to get Truman elected in 1948 than anyone other than Truman himself.
United States Senate (1949–1964)
Humphrey was elected to the United States Senate in 1948 on the DFL ticket, defeating James M. Shields in the DFL primary with 89% of the vote, and unseating incumbent Republican Joseph H. Ball in the general election with 60% of the vote. He took office on January 3, 1949, becoming the first Democrat elected senator from Minnesota since before the Civil War. Humphrey wrote that the victory heightened his sense of self, as he had beaten the odds of defeating a Republican with statewide support. Humphrey's father died that year, and Humphrey stopped using the "Jr." suffix on his name. He was reelected in 1954 and 1960. His colleagues selected him as majority whip in 1961, a position he held until he left the Senate on December 29, 1964, to assume the vice presidency. Humphrey served from the 81st to the 87th sessions of Congress, and in a portion of the 88th Congress.
Initially, Humphrey's support of civil rights led to his being ostracized by Southern Democrats, who dominated Senate leadership positions and wanted to punish him for proposing the civil rights platform at the 1948 Convention. Senator Richard Russell Jr. of Georgia, a leader of Southern Democrats, once remarked to other Senators as Humphrey walked by, "Can you imagine the people of Minnesota sending that damn fool down here to represent them?" Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground; his integrity, passion and eloquence eventually earned him the respect of even most of the Southerners. The Southerners were also more inclined to accept Humphrey after he became a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Humphrey became known for his advocacy of liberal causes (such as civil rights, arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid), and for his long and witty speeches.
Humphrey was a liberal leader who fought to uphold Truman's veto of the McCarran Act of 1950. The bill was designed to suppress the American Communist Party. With a small group of liberals he supported the Kilgore substitute that would allow the president to lock up subversives, without trial, in a time of national emergency. The model was the internment of West Coast Japanese in 1942. The goal was to split the McCarren coalition. For years critics charged that Humphrey supported concentration camps. The ploy failed to stop the new law; the Senate voted 57 to 10 to overturn Truman's veto. In 1954 he proposed to make membership in the Communist Party a felony. It was another ploy to derail a bill that would hurt labor unions. Humphrey's proposal did not pass.
Humphrey was the author of the first humane slaughter bill introduced in the U.S. Congress and chief Senate sponsor of the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958.
Humphrey chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament (84th and 85th Congresses). In February 1960 he introduced a bill to establish a National Peace Agency. With another former pharmacist, Representative Carl Durham, Humphrey cosponsored the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, defining two specific categories for medications, legend (prescription) and over-the-counter (OTC).
As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act that year. He was a lead author of its text, alongside Senate Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.
While President John F. Kennedy is often credited for creating the Peace Corps, Humphrey introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years before Kennedy's University of Michigan speech. A trio of journalists wrote of Humphrey in 1969 that "few men in American politics have achieved so much of lasting significance. It was Humphrey, not Senator [Everett] Dirksen, who played the crucial part in the complex parliamentary games that were needed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was Humphrey, not John Kennedy, who first proposed the Peace Corps. The Food for Peace program was Humphrey's idea, and so was Medicare, passed sixteen years after he first proposed it. He worked for Federal aid to education from 1949, and for a nuclear-test ban treaty from 1956. These are the solid monuments of twenty years of effective work for liberal causes in the Senate." President Johnson once said that "Most Senators are minnows ... Hubert Humphrey is among the whales."
In his autobiography, The Education of a Public Man, Humphrey wrote:
There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought the idea was silly and unworkable. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.
On April 9, 1950, Humphrey predicted that President Truman would sign a $4 billion housing bill and charge Republicans with having removed the bill's main middle-income benefits during Truman's tours of the Midwest and Northwest the following month.
On January 7, 1951, Humphrey joined Senator Paul Douglas in calling for an $80 billion federal budget to combat Communist aggression along with a stiff tax increase to prevent borrowing.
In a January 1951 letter to President Truman, Humphrey wrote of the necessity of a commission akin to the Fair Employment Practices Commission that would be used to end discrimination in defense industries and predicted that establishing such a commission by executive order would be met with high approval by Americans.
On June 18, 1953, Humphrey introduced a resolution calling for the US to urge free elections in Germany in response to the anti-Communist riots in East Berlin.
In December 1958, after receiving a message from Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to the Soviet Union, Humphrey returned insisting that the message was not negative toward America. In February 1959, Humphrey said American newspapers should have ignored Khrushchev's comments calling him a purveyor of fairy tales. In a September address to the National Stationery and Office Equipment Association, Humphrey called for further inspection of Khrushchev's "live and let live" doctrine and maintained the Cold War could be won by using American "weapons of peace".
In June 1963, Humphrey accompanied his longtime friend labor leader Walter Reuther on a trip to Harpsund, the Swedish Prime Minister's summer country retreat, to meet with European socialist leaders for an exchange of ideas. Among the European leaders who met with Humphrey and Reuther were the prime ministers of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as well as future German chancellor Willy Brandt.
Presidential and vice-presidential ambitions (1952–1964)
Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice before his election to the Vice Presidency in 1964. The first time was as Minnesota's favorite son in 1952; he received only 26 votes on the first ballot. The second time was in 1960. In between these two bids, Humphrey was part of the free-for-all for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.
In 1960, Humphrey ran for the nomination against fellow Senator John F. Kennedy in the primaries. Their first meeting was in the Wisconsin Primary, where Kennedy's well-organized and well-funded campaign overcame Humphrey's energetic but poorly funded effort. Humphrey believed defeating Kennedy in Wisconsin would weaken and slow the momentum of the latter's campaign. Kennedy's attractive brothers, sisters, and wife Jacqueline combed the state for votes. At one point Humphrey memorably complained that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store". Humphrey later wrote in his memoirs that "Muriel and I and our 'plain folks' entourage were no match for the glamour of Jackie Kennedy and the other Kennedy women, for Peter Lawford ... and Frank Sinatra singing their commercial 'High Hopes'. Jack Kennedy brought family and Hollywood to Wisconsin. The people loved it and the press ate it up." Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, but by a smaller margin than anticipated. Some commentators argued that Kennedy's victory margin had come almost entirely from areas with large Roman Catholic populations, and that Protestants had supported Humphrey. As a result, Humphrey refused to quit the race and decided to run against Kennedy again in the West Virginia primary. According to one biographer "Humphrey thought his chances were good in West Virginia, one of the few states that had backed him in his losing race for vice-president four years earlier ... West Virginia was more rural than urban, [which] seemed to invite Humphrey's folksy stump style. The state, moreover, was a citadel of labor. It was depressed; unemployment had hit hard; and coal miners' families were hungry. Humphrey felt he could talk to such people, who were 95% Protestant (Humphrey was a Congregationalist) and deep-dyed Bible-belters besides."
Kennedy chose to meet the religion issue head-on. In radio broadcasts, he carefully redefined the issue from Catholic versus Protestant to tolerance versus intolerance. Kennedy's appeal placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive, and Kennedy attacked him with a vengeance. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., the son of the former president, stumped for Kennedy in West Virginia and raised the issue of Humphrey's failure to serve in the armed forces in World War II. Roosevelt told audiences, "I don't know where he [Humphrey] was in World War Two," and handed out flyers charging that Humphrey was a draft dodger. Historian Robert Dallek has written that Robert F. Kennedy, who was serving as his brother's campaign manager, came into "possession of information that Humphrey may have sought military deferments during World War Two ... he pressed Roosevelt to use this." Humphrey believed Roosevelt's draft-dodger claim "had been approved by Bobby [Kennedy], if not Jack". The claims that Humphrey was a draft dodger were inaccurate, because during the war Humphrey had "tried and failed to get into the [military] service because of physical disabilities". After the West Virginia primary, Roosevelt sent Humphrey a written apology and retraction. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Roosevelt "felt that he had been used, blaming [the draft-dodger charge] on Robert Kennedy's determination to win at any cost ... Roosevelt said later that it was the biggest political mistake of his career."
Short on funds, Humphrey could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation. He traveled around the state in a rented bus while Kennedy and his staff flew in a large, family-owned airplane. According to his biographer Carl Solberg, Humphrey spent only $23,000 on the West Virginia primary while Kennedy's campaign privately spent $1.5 million, well over their official estimate of $100,000. Unproven accusations claimed that the Kennedys had bought the West Virginia primary by bribing county sheriffs and other local officials to give Kennedy the vote. Humphrey later wrote, "as a professional politician I was able to accept and indeed respect the efficacy of the Kennedy campaign. But underneath the beautiful exterior, there was an element of ruthlessness and toughness that I had trouble either accepting or forgetting." Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly in West Virginia with 60.8% of the vote. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was leaving the race. By winning West Virginia, Kennedy overcame the belief that Protestant voters would not elect a Catholic to the presidency and thus sewed up the Democratic nomination.
Humphrey won the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which Kennedy did not enter. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, he received 41 votes even though he was no longer a candidate.
Vice presidential campaign
Humphrey's defeat in 1960 had a profound influence on his thinking; after the primaries he told friends that, as a relatively poor man in politics, he was unlikely to ever become President unless he served as Vice President first. Humphrey believed that only in this way could he attain the funds, nationwide organization, and visibility he would need to win the Democratic nomination. So as the 1964 presidential campaign began, Humphrey made clear his interest in becoming Lyndon Johnson's running mate. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson kept the three likely vice-presidential candidates, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Humphrey, as well as the rest of the nation, in suspense before announcing his choice of Humphrey with much fanfare, praising his qualifications at considerable length before announcing his name.
The following day Humphrey's acceptance speech overshadowed Johnson's own acceptance address:
In an address before labor leaders in Youngstown, Ohio on September 7, 1964, Humphrey said the labor movement had "more at stake in this election than almost any other segment of society". In Jamesburg, New Jersey on September 10, Humphrey remarked that Goldwater had a "record of retreat and reaction" when it came to issues of urban housing. During a September 12 Denver Democratic rally, Humphrey charged Goldwater with having rejected programs that most Americans and members of his own party supported. At a Santa Fe September 13 rally, Humphrey said the Goldwater-led Republican Party was seeking "to divide America so that they may conquer" and that Goldwater would pinch individuals in his reduction of government. On September 16, Humphrey said the Americans for Democratic Action supported the Johnson administration's economic sanctions against Cuba, and that the organization wanted to see a free Cuban government. The following day in San Antonio, Texas, Humphrey said Goldwater opposed programs favored by most Texans and Americans.
During a September 27 appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, Humphrey said the Kennedy administration had led America in a prosperous direction and called for voters to issue a referendum with their vote against "those who seek to replace the Statue of Liberty with an iron-padlocked gate."
At Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on October 2, Humphrey said the general election would give voters a choice between his running mate and a candidate "who curses the darkness and never lights a candle". During an October 9 Jersey City, New Jersey appearance, Humphrey responded to critics of the administration, who he called "sick and tired Americans", by touting the accomplishments of both Kennedy's and Johnson's presidencies. In Tampa, Florida on October 18, a week after the resignation of Walter Jenkins amid a scandal, Humphrey said he was unaware of any potential security leaks relating to the case. In Minneapolis on October 24, Humphrey listed the censure vote toward Senator Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights bill, and the nuclear test ban treaty as "three great issues of conscience to come before the United States Senate in the past decade" that Goldwater had voted incorrectly on as a Senator. In an October 26 speech in Chicago, Humphrey called Goldwater "neither a Republican nor a Democrat" and "a radical".
The Johnson-Humphrey ticket won the election overwhelmingly, with 486 electoral votes out of 538. Only five Southern states and Goldwater's home state of Arizona supported the Republican ticket. In October Humphrey had predicted that the ticket would win by a large margin but not carry every state.
Vice President-elect of the United States
Soon after winning the election, Humphrey and Johnson went to LBJ ranch near Stonewall, Texas. On November 6, 1964, Humphrey traveled to the Virgin Islands for a two-week vacation. News stations aired taped remarks in which Humphrey stated that he had not discussed with Johnson what his role would be as vice president and that national campaigns should be reduced by four weeks. In a November 20 interview, Humphrey announced he would resign his Senate seat midway through the next month so that Walter Mondale could assume the position.
On December 10, 1964, Humphrey met with Johnson in the Oval Office, the latter charging the vice president-elect with "developing a publicity machine extraordinaire and of always wanting to get his name in the paper." Johnson showed Humphrey a George Reed memo with the allegation that the president would die within six months from an already acquired fatal heart disease. The same day, during a speech in Washington, Johnson announced Humphrey would have the position of giving assistance to governmental civil rights programs.
On January 19, 1965, the day before the inauguration, Humphrey told the Democratic National Committee that the party had unified because of the national consensus established by the presidential election.
Vice Presidency (1965–1969)
Humphrey took office on January 20, 1965, ending the 14-month vacancy of the Vice President of the United States, which had remained empty when then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was an early skeptic of the then growing Vietnam War. Following a successful Viet Cong hit-and-run attack on a US military installation at Pleiku on February 7, 1965 (where 7 Americans were killed and 109 wounded), Humphrey returned from Georgia to Washington D.C., to attempt to prevent further escalation. He told President Johnson that bombing North Vietnam was not a solution to the problems in South Vietnam, but that bombing would require the injection of US ground forces into South Vietnam to protect the airbases. Presciently, he noted that a military solution in Vietnam would take several years, well beyond the next election cycle. In response to this advice, President Johnson punished Humphrey by treating him coldly and restricting him from his inner circle for a number of months, until Humphrey decided to "get back on the team" and fully support the war effort.
As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War. Many of Humphrey's liberal friends and allies abandoned him because of his refusal to publicly criticize Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Humphrey's critics later learned that Johnson had threatened Humphrey – Johnson told Humphrey that if he publicly criticized his policies, he would destroy Humphrey's chances to become President by opposing his nomination at the next Democratic Convention. However, Humphrey's critics were vocal and persistent: even his nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him. The nickname referred not to his military hawkishness, but rather to his crusading for social welfare and civil rights programs. After his narrow defeat in the 1968 presidential election, Humphrey wrote that "After four years as Vice-President ... I had lost some of my personal identity and personal forcefulness. ... I ought not to have let a man [Johnson] who was going to be a former President dictate my future."
While he was Vice President, Hubert Humphrey was the subject of a satirical song by songwriter/musician Tom Lehrer entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?" The song addressed how some liberals and progressives felt let down by Humphrey, who had become a much more mute figure as Vice President than he had been as a senator. The song goes "Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing? Once he shone on his own, now he sits home alone and waits for the phone to ring. Once a fiery liberal spirit, ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it. ..."
During these years Humphrey was a repeated and favorite guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He also struck up a friendship with Frank Sinatra, who supported his campaign for president in 1968 before his conversion to the Republican party in the early 1970s, and was perhaps most on notice in the fall of 1977 when Sinatra was the star attraction and host of a tribute to a then-ailing Humphrey. He also appeared on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in 1973.
On April 15, 1965, Humphrey delivered an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, pledging the incumbent session of Congress would "do more for the lasting long-term health of this nation" since the initial session in office at the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt assuming the presidency in 1933 and predicting 13 major measures of President Johnson's administration would be passed ahead of the session's conclusion. In mid-May 1965, Humphrey traveled to Dallas, Texas for an off-the-record discussion with donors of President Johnson's campaign. During the visit, Humphrey was imposed tight security as a result of the JFK assassination a year and a half prior and the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald was placed under surveillance by Police Chief Cato Hightower.
During a May 31, 1966 appearance at Huron College, Humphrey said the US should not expect "either friendship or gratitude" in helping poorer countries. At a September 22, 1966 Jamesburg, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Humphrey said the Vietnam War would be shortened if the US stayed firm and hastened the return of troops: "We are making a decision not only to defend Vietnam, we are defending the United States of America."
During a May 1967 news conference, Humphrey said American anger toward Vietnam was losing traction and that he could see a growth in popularity for President Johnson since a low point five months prior. During an August 2, 1967 appearance in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey proposed each state consider forming peacekeeping councils focused on preventing violence, gaining community cooperation, and listening to "the voices of those who have gone unheard."
On November 4, 1967, Humphrey cited Malaysia as an example of what Vietnam could resemble post a Viet Cong defeat while in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The following day, Vice President Humphrey requested Indonesia attempt mediation in the Vietnam War during a meeting with Suharto at Merdeka palace. On December 7, Vice President Humphrey said in an interview that the Viet Cong could potentially be the factor in creating a political compromise with the government of Saigon.
Civil rights
In February 1965, President Johnson appointed Humphrey to the chairmanship of the President's Council on Equal Opportunity. The position and board had been proposed by Humphrey, who told Johnson that the board should consist of members of the Cabinet and federal agency leaders and serve multiple roles: assisting agency cooperation, creating federal program consistency, using advanced planning to avoid potential racial unrest, creating public policy, and meeting with local and state level leaders. During his tenure, he appointed Wiley A Branton as executive director. During the first meeting of the group on March 3, Humphrey stated the budget was US$289,000 and pledged to ensure vigorous work by the small staff. Following the Watts riots in August of that year, Johnson downsized Humphrey's role as the administration's expert on civil rights. Dallek wrote the shift in role was in line with the change in policy the Johnson administration underwent in response to "the changing political mood in the country on aid to African Americans." In a private meeting with Joseph Califano on September 18, 1965, President Johnson stated his intent to remove Humphrey from the post of "point man" on civil rights within the administration, believing the vice president was tasked with enough work. Days later, Humphrey met with Johnson, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and White House Counsel Lee C. White. Johnson told Humphrey he would shorten his role within the administration's civil rights policies and pass a portion to Katzenbach, Califano writing that Humphrey agreed to go along with the plan reluctantly.
In an August 1967 speech at a county officials national convention in Detroit, Michigan, Humphrey called for the establishment of a Marshall Plan that would curb poverty in the United States as well as address racial violence, and advocated for the creation of civil peace councils that would counter rioting. He said the councils should include representation from all minority groups and religions, state governments, the National Guard, and law enforcement agencies and that the United States would see itself out of trouble only when law and order was reestablished.
Foreign trips
December 1965 saw the beginning of Humphrey's tour of eastern countries, saying he hoped to have "cordial and frank discussions" ahead of the trip beginning when asked about the content of the talks. During a December 29 meeting with Prime Minister of Japan Eisaku Satō, Humphrey asked the latter for support on achieving peace in the Vietnam War and said it was a showing of strength that the United States wanted a peaceful ending rather than a display of weakness.
Humphrey began a European tour in late-March 1967 to mend frazzled relations and indicated that he was "ready to explain and ready to listen." On April 2, 1967, Vice President Humphrey met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson. Ahead of the meeting, Humphrey said they would discuss multiple topics including the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, European events, Atlantic alliance strengthening, and "the situation in the Far East". White House Press Secretary George Christian said five days later that he had received reports from Vice President Humphrey indicating his tour of the European countries was "very constructive" and said President Johnson was interested in the report as well. While Humphrey was in Florence, Italy on April 1, 1967, 23-year-old Giulio Stocchi threw eggs at the Vice President and missed. He was seized by American bodyguards who turned him in to Italian officers. In Brussels, Belgium on April 9, demonstrators led by communists threw rotten eggs and fruits at Vice President Humphrey's car, also hitting several of his bodyguards. In late-December 1967, Vice President Humphrey began touring Africa.
1968 presidential election
As 1968 began, it looked as if President Johnson, despite the rapidly decreasing approval rating of his Vietnam War policies, would easily win the Democratic nomination for a second time. Humphrey was widely expected to remain Johnson's running mate for reelection in 1968. Johnson was challenged by Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform. With the backing of out-of-state anti-war college students and activists while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy, who was not expected to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, nearly defeated Johnson, finishing with a surprising 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49%. A few days after the New Hampshire primary, after months of contemplation and originally intending to support Johnson's bid for reelection, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York also entered the race on an anti-war platform. On March 31, 1968, a week before the Wisconsin primary, where polls showed a strong standing for McCarthy, President Johnson stunned the nation by withdrawing from his race for a second full term.
Following the announcement from Johnson, Humphrey announced his presidential candidacy on April 27, 1968. Declaring his candidacy in a speech in Washington, DC alongside Senators Fred Harris of Oklahoma and Walter Mondale of Minnesota (who both served as the co-chairs to his campaign), Humphrey stated:
Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.
Also in his speech, Humphrey supported President Johnson's Vietnam initiative he proposed during his address to the nation four weeks earlier; partially halting the bombings in North Vietnam, while sending an additional 13,500 troops and increasing the Department of Defense's budget by 4% over the next fiscal year. Later in the campaign, Humphrey opposed a proposal by Senators McCarthy and George McGovern of South Dakota to the Democratic Convention's Policy Committee, calling for an immediate end to the bombings in Vietnam, an early withdrawal of troops and setting talks for a coalition government with the Viet Cong.
Many people saw Humphrey as Johnson's stand-in; he won major backing from the nation's labor unions and other Democratic groups troubled by young antiwar protesters and the social unrest around the nation. A group of British journalists wrote that Humphrey, despite his liberal record on civil rights and support for a nuclear test-ban treaty, "had turned into an arch-apologist for the war, who was given to trotting around Vietnam looking more than a little silly in olive-drab fatigues and a forage cap. The man whose name had been a by-word in the South for softness toward Negroes had taken to lecturing black groups ... the wild-eyed reformer had become the natural champion of every conservative element in the Democratic Party." Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states by gaining the support of Democratic officeholders who were elected delegates to the Democratic Convention. By June, McCarthy won in Oregon and Pennsylvania, while Kennedy had won in Indiana and Nebraska, though Humphrey was the front runner as he led the delegate count. The California primary was crucial for Kennedy's campaign, as a McCarthy victory would have prevented Kennedy from reaching the number of delegates required to secure the nomination. On June 4, 1968, Kennedy defeated McCarthy by less than 4% in the winner-take-all California primary. But the nation was shocked yet again when Senator Kennedy was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. After the assassination of Kennedy, Humphrey suspended his campaign for two weeks.
Chicago riots and party fallout
Humphrey did not enter any of the 13 state primary elections, but won the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, even though 80 percent of the primary voters had been for antiwar candidates. The delegates defeated the peace plank by 1,567 to 1,041. Humphrey selected as his running mate Senator Ed Muskie of Maine. Unfortunately for Humphrey and his campaign, in Grant Park, just five miles south of International Amphitheatre convention hall, and at other sites near downtown Chicago, there were gatherings and protests by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, many of whom favored McCarthy, George McGovern, or other antiwar candidates. Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago police attacked and beat these protesters, most of them young college students, which amplified the growing feelings of unrest among the public.
Humphrey's inaction during these incidents, Johnson's and Daley's behind-the-scenes maneuvers, public backlash against Humphrey's winning the nomination without entering a single primary, and Humphrey's refusal to meet McCarthy halfway on his demands, resulting in McCarthy's refusal to fully endorse him, highlighted turmoil in the Democratic Party's base that proved to be too much for Humphrey to overcome in time for the general election. The combination of Johnson's unpopularity, the Chicago demonstrations, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. that year, all contributed to his loss to former Vice President Nixon. Nevertheless, as Wallace lost support among white union members, Humphrey regained strength and the final polls showed a close race. Humphrey reversed his Vietnam policy, called for peace talks, and won back some of the antiwar Democrats.
Nixon won the electoral college and the election. Humphrey lost the popular vote by less than one percent, with 43.4% for Nixon (31,783,783 votes) to 42.7% (31,271,839) for Humphrey, and 13.5% (9,901,118) for Wallace. Humphrey carried just 13 states with 191 electoral college votes, Nixon carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace carried five states and 46 electoral votes. In his concession speech, Humphrey said, "I have done my best. I have lost; Mr. Nixon has won. The democratic process has worked its will."
Post-Vice Presidency (1969–1978)
Teaching and return to the Senate
After leaving the Vice Presidency, Humphrey taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and served as chairman of the board of consultants at the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
On February 11, 1969, Humphrey met privately with Mayor Richard J. Daley and denied ever being "at war" with Daley during a press conference later in the day. In March, Humphrey declined answering questions on the Johnson administration being either involved or privy to the cessation of bombing of the north in Vietnam during an interview on Issues and Answers. At a press conference on June 2, 1969, Humphrey backed Nixon's peace efforts, dismissing the notion that he was not seeking an end to the war. In early July, Humphrey traveled to Finland for a private visit. Later that month, Humphrey returned to Washington after visiting Europe, a week after McCarthy declared he would not seek reelection, Humphrey declining to comment amid speculation he intended to return to the Senate. During the fall, Humphrey arranged to meet with President Nixon through United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Humphrey saying the day after the meeting that President Nixon had "expressed his appreciation on my attitude to his effort on Vietnam." On August 3, Humphrey said that Russia was buying time to develop ballistic missile warheads to catch up with the United States and that security was the "overriding concern" of the Soviet Union. Days later, Humphrey repudiated efforts against President Nixon's anti-ballistic missile system: "I have a feeling that they [opponents of the ABM] were off chasing rabbits when a tiger is loose." During October, Humphrey spoke before the AFL-CIO convention delegates, charging President Nixon's economic policies with "putting Americans out of work without slowing inflation." On October 10, Humphrey stated his support for Nixon's policies in Vietnam and that he believed "the worst thing that we can do is to try to undermine the efforts of the President." At a December 21 press conference, Humphrey said President Nixon was a participant in the "politics of polarization" and could not seek unity on one hand but have divisive agents on the other. On December 26, Humphrey responded to a claim from former President Johnson that Humphrey had been cost the election by his own call for a stop to North Vietnam bombing, saying he did what he "thought was right and responsible at Salt Lake City."
On January 4, 1970, Humphrey said the United States should cease tests of nuclear weapons during the continued conversations for potential strategic arms limitations between the United States and the Soviet Union while speaking to the National Retail Furniture association at the Palmer House. In February, Humphrey predicted Nixon would withdraw 75,000 or more troops prior to the year's midterm elections and the main issue would be the economy during an interview: "The issue of 1970 is the economy. Some of my fellow Democrats don't believe this. But this is a fact." On February 23, Humphrey disclosed his recommendation to Larry O'Brien for the latter to return to being Chair of the Democratic National Committee, a Humphrey spokesman reporting that Humphrey wanted a quick settlement to the issue of the DNC chairmanship. Solberg wrote of President Nixon's April 1970 Cambodian Campaign as having done away with Humphrey's hopes that the war be taken out of political context. In May, Humphrey pledged to do all that he was capable of to provide additional war planes to Israel and stress the issue to American leaders. Amid an August 11 address to the American Bar Association luncheon meeting, Humphrey called for liberals to cease defending campus radicals and militants and align with law and order.
Humphrey had not planned to return to political life, but an unexpected opportunity changed his mind. McCarthy, who was up for reelection in 1970, realized that he had only a slim chance of winning even re-nomination for the Minnesota seat because he had angered his party by opposing Johnson and Humphrey for the 1968 presidential nomination, and declined to run. Humphrey won the nomination, defeated Republican Congressman Clark MacGregor, and returned to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1971. Ahead of resuming his senatorial duties, Humphrey had a November 16, 1970 White House meeting with President Nixon as part of a group of newly elected senators invited to meet with the president. He was reelected in 1976, and remained in office until his death. In a rarity in politics, Humphrey held both Senate seats from his state (Class I and Class II) at different times. During his return to the Senate he served in the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and a portion of the 95th Congress. He served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in the 94th Congress.
Fourth Senate term
L. Edward Purcell wrote that upon returning to the Senate, Humphrey found himself "again a lowly junior senator with no seniority" and that he resolved to create credibility in the eyes of liberals.
On May 3, 1971, after the Americans for Democratic Action adopted a resolution demanding President Nixon's impeachment, Humphrey commented that they were acting "more out of emotion and passion than reason and prudent judgment" and that the request was irresponsible. On May 21, Humphrey said ending hunger and malnutrition in the U.S. was "a moral obligation" during a speech to International Food Service Manufacturers Association members at the Conrad Hilton Hotel. In June, Humphrey delivered the commencement address at the University of Bridgeport and days later said that he believed Nixon was interested in seeing a peaceful end to the Vietnam War "as badly as any senator or anybody else." On July 14, while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Arms Control, Humphrey proposed amending the defense procurement bill to place in escrow all funds for creation and usage of multiple‐missile warheads in the midst of continued arms limitations talks. Humphrey said members of the Nixon administration needed to remember "when they talk of a tough negotiating position, they are going to get a tough response." On September 6, Humphrey rebuked the Nixon administration's wage price freeze, saying it was based on trickle-down policies and advocating "percolate up" as a replacement, while speaking at a United Rubber Workers gathering. On October 26, Humphrey stated his support for removing barriers to voting registration and authorizing students to establish voting residences in their college communities, rebuking the refusal of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell the previous month to take a role in shaping voter registration laws as applicable to new voters. On December 24, 1971, Humphrey accused the Nixon administration of turning its back on the impoverished in the rural parts of the United States, citing few implementations of the relief recommendations of the 1967 National Advisory Commission; in another statement he said only 3 of the 150 recommendations had been implemented. On December 27, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was responsible for an escalation of the Southeast Asia war and requested complete cessation of North Vietnam bombing while responding to antiwar protestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In January 1972, Humphrey stated the U.S. would be out of the Vietnam War by that point had he been elected President, saying Nixon was taking longer to withdraw American troops from the country than it took to defeat Adolf Hitler. On May 20, Humphrey said Nixon's proposal to limit schoolchildren busing was "insufficient in the amount of aid needed for our children, deceptive to the American people, and insensitive to the laws and the Constitution of this nation", in a reversal of his prior stance, while in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During a May 30 appearance in Burbank, California, Humphrey stated his support for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam despite an invasion by North Vietnam.
In January 1973, Humphrey said the Nixon administration was plotting to eliminate a school milk program in the upcoming fiscal year budget during a telephone interview. On February 18, 1973, Humphrey said the Middle East could possibly usher in peace following the Vietnam War ending along with American troops withdrawing from Indochina during an appearance at the New York Hilton. In August 1973, Humphrey called on Nixon to schedule a meeting with nations exporting and importing foods as part of an effort to both create a worldwide policy on food and do away with food hoarding. After Nixon's dismissal of Archibald Cox, Humphrey said he found "the whole situation entirely depressing." Three days after Cox's dismissal, during a speech to the AFL-CIO convention on October 23, Humphrey declined to state his position on whether Nixon should be impeached, citing that his congressional position would likely cause him to have to play a role in determining Nixon's fate. On December 21, Humphrey disclosed his request of federal tax deductions of US$199,153 for the donation of his vice presidential papers to the Minnesota State Historical Society.
In early January 1974, Humphrey checked into the Bethesda Naval Hospital for tests regarding a minute tumor of the bladder. His physician Edgar Berman said the next day that Humphrey "looks fine and feels fine" and was expected to leave early the following week. In an interview conducted on March 29, 1974, Humphrey concurred with Senator Mike Mansfield's assessment from the prior day that the House of Representatives had enough votes to impeach Nixon. Humphrey was reportedly pleased by Nixon's resignation.
In an April 1975 news conference at the spring education conference of the United Federation of Teachers, Humphrey cited the need for a national department of education, a national education trust fund, and a federal government provision for a third of America's educational expenses. He said the Ford administration had no educational policy and noted the United States was the only industrialized country without a separate national education department. In May, Humphrey testified at the trial of his former campaign manager Jack L. Chestnut, admitting that as a candidate he sought the support of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., but saying he was not privy to the illegal contributions Chestnut was accused of taking from the organization. Later that month, Humphrey was one of 19 senators to originate a letter stating the expectation of 75 senators that Ford would submit a foreign aid request to Congress meeting the "urgent military and economic needs" of Israel. In August, after the United States Court of Appeals ruled that Ford had no authority to continue levying fees of $2 a barrel on imported oil, Humphrey hailed the decision as "the best news we've heard on the inflation front in a long time" and urged Ford to accept the decision because the price reduction on oil and oil‐related products would benefit the national economy. In October, after Sara Jane Moore's assassination attempt on Ford, Humphrey joined former presidential candidates Barry Goldwater, Edmund Muskie, and George McGovern in urging Ford and other presidential candidates to restrain their campaigning the following year to prevent future attempts on their lives.
In October 1976, Humphrey was admitted to a hospital for the removal of a cancerous bladder, predicted his victory in his reelection bid and advocated for members of his party to launch efforts to increase voter turnout upon his release.
1972 presidential election
On November 4, 1970, shortly after being reelected to the Senate, Humphrey stated his intention to take on the role of a "harmonizer" within the Democratic Party to minimize the possibility of potential presidential candidates within the party lambasting each other prior to deciding to run in the then-upcoming election, dismissing that he was an active candidate at that time. In December 1971, Humphrey made his second trip to New Jersey in under a month, talking with a plurality of county leaders at the Robert Treat Hotel: "I told them I wanted their support. I said I'd rather work with them than against them."
In 1972, Humphrey once again ran for the Democratic nomination for president, announcing his candidacy on January 10, 1972 during a twenty-minute speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time of the announcement, Humphrey said he was running on a platform of the removal of troops from Vietnam and a revitalization of the United States economy. He drew upon continuing support from organized labor and the African-American and Jewish communities, but remained unpopular with college students because of his association with the Vietnam War, even though he had altered his position in the years since his 1968 defeat. Humphrey initially planned to skip the primaries, as he had in 1968. Even after he revised this strategy he still stayed out of New Hampshire, a decision that allowed McGovern to emerge as the leading challenger to Muskie in that state. Humphrey did win some primaries, including those in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, but was defeated by McGovern in several others, including the crucial California primary. Humphrey also was out-organized by McGovern in caucus states and was trailing in delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. His hopes rested on challenges to the credentials of some of the McGovern delegates. For example, the Humphrey forces argued that the winner-take-all rule for the California primary violated procedural reforms intended to produce a better reflection of the popular vote, the reason that the Illinois delegation was bounced. The effort failed, as several votes on delegate credentials went McGovern's way, guaranteeing his victory.
1976 presidential election
On April 22, 1974, Humphrey said that he would not enter the upcoming Democratic presidential primary for the 1976 Presidential election. Humphrey said at the time that he was urging fellow Senator and Minnesotan Walter Mondale to run, despite believing that Ted Kennedy would enter the race as well. Leading up to the election cycle, Humphrey also said, "Here's a time in my life when I appear to have more support than at any other time in my life. But it's too financially, politically, and physically debilitating – and I'm just not going to do it." In December 1975, a Gallup poll was released showing Humphrey and Ronald Reagan as the leading Democratic and Republican candidates for the following year's presidential election.
On April 12, 1976, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party State Senator James P. Dugan said the selection of a majority of uncommitted delegates could be interpreted as a victory for Humphrey, who had indicated his availability as a presidential candidate for the convention. Humphrey announced his choice to not enter the New Jersey primary nor authorize any committees to work to support him during an April 29, 1976 appearance in the Senate Caucus Room. Even after Jimmy Carter had won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, many still wanted Humphrey to announce his availability for a draft. However, he did not do so, and Carter easily secured the nomination on the first round of balloting. Humphrey had learned that he had terminal cancer, prompting him to sit the race out.
Humphrey attended the November 17, 1976 meeting between President-elect Carter and Democratic congressional leaders in which Carter sought out support for a proposal to have the president's power to reorganize the government reinstated with potential to be vetoed by Congress.
Fifth Senate term
Humphrey attended the May 3, 1977 White House meeting on legislative priorities. Humphrey told President Carter that the U.S. would enter a period of high unemployment without an economic stimulus and noted that in "every period in our history, a rise in unemployment has been accompanied by a rise in inflation". Humphrey stated a preventative health care program would be the only way for the Carter administration to not have to fund soaring health costs. In July 1977, after the Senate began debating approval for funding of the neutron bomb, Humphrey stated that the White House had agreed to release the impact statement, a requirement for Congressional funding of a new weapon.
Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate (1977–1978)
In 1974, along with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, Humphrey authored the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, the first attempt at full employment legislation. The original bill proposed to guarantee full employment to all citizens over 16 and set up a permanent system of public jobs to meet that goal. A watered-down version called the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act passed the House and Senate in 1978. It set the goal of 4 percent unemployment and 3 percent inflation and instructed the Federal Reserve Board to try to produce those goals when making policy decisions.
Humphrey ran for Majority Leader after the 1976 election but lost to Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The Senate honored Humphrey by creating the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate for him. On August 16, 1977, Humphrey revealed he was suffering from terminal bladder cancer. On October 25 of that year, he addressed the Senate, and on November 3, Humphrey became the first person other than a member of the House or the President of the United States to address the House of Representatives in session. President Carter honored him by giving him command of Air Force One for his final trip to Washington on October 23. One of Humphrey's final speeches contained the lines "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped", which is sometimes described as the "liberals' mantra".
Death and funeral
Humphrey spent his last weeks calling old political acquaintances. One call was to Richard Nixon inviting him to his upcoming funeral, which Nixon accepted. Staying in the hospital, Humphrey went from room to room, cheering up other patients by telling them jokes and listening to them. On January 13, 1978, he died of bladder cancer at his home in Waverly, Minnesota, at the age of 66.
Humphrey's body lay in state in the rotundas of the U.S. Capitol and the Minnesota State Capitol before being interred at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. His passing overshadowed the death of his colleague from Montana, Senator Lee Metcalf, who had died the day before Humphrey. Old friends and opponents of Humphrey, from Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon to President Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale, paid their final respects. "He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die", said Mondale.
Humphrey's wife Muriel was appointed by Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich to serve in the U.S. Senate until a special election to fill the term was held; she did not seek election to finish her husband's term in office. In 1981 she married Max Brown and took the name Muriel Humphrey Brown. Upon her death in 1998 she was interred next to Humphrey at Lakewood Cemetery.
Honors and legacy
In 1965, Humphrey was made an Honorary Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically African American fraternity.
In 1978, Humphrey received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
He was awarded posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal on June 13, 1979 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 52¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.
There is a statue of him in front of the Minneapolis City Hall.
Humphrey's legacy is bolstered by his early leadership in civil rights, and undermined by his long support of the Vietnam War. His leading biographer Arnold A. Offner says he was "the most successful legislator in the nation's history and a powerful voice for equal justice for all." Offner writes that Humphrey was:
A major force for nearly every important liberal policy initiative....putting civil rights on his party's and the nation's agenda [in 1948] for decades to come. As senator he proposed legislation to effect national health insurance, for aid to poor nations, immigration and income tax reform, a Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the path breaking 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty....[He provided] masterful stewardship of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.
While acknowledging his accomplishments, some historians emphasize that Humphrey was "a flawed, and not entirely likeable, figure who talked too much and neglected his family while pursuing a politics of compromise that owed as much to his vaunting personal ambition as to political pragmatism."
Namesakes
Fellowship
The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which fosters an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding throughout the world.
Buildings and institutions
The Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
The former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome domed stadium in Minneapolis which was home to the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League and the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and its building, the Hubert H. Humphrey Center (formerly Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; changed in January 2011)
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Bridge carrying FL S.R. 520 over the Indian River Lagoon between Cocoa and Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida
The Hubert H. Humphrey Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in Los Angeles, California.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Recreation Center of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in Pacoima, CA.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Auditorium at Doland High School in Doland, South Dakota.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Hubert H. Humphrey Elementary School in Waverly, Minnesota
The Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Portrayals
Franklin Cover in the 1982 television film A Woman Called Golda.
Bradley Whitford in the 2016 television film All the Way.
Doug McKeon in the 2017 film LBJ.
Electoral history
See also
Politics of Minnesota
Humphrey's son, Hubert H. Humphrey III and grandson Buck Humphrey are also Minnesotan politicians.
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
Humphrey objection
Notes
References
Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979. A physician's personal account of his friendship with Humphrey from 1957 until his death in 1978.
Boomhower, Ray E. "Fighting the Good Fight: John Bartlow Martin and Hubert Humphrey's 1968 Presidential Campaign." Indiana Magazine of History (2020) 116#1 pp 1-29. online
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Chester, Lewis, Hodgson, Godfrey, Page, Bruce. An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: The Viking Press, 1969. online
Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.
Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.
Engelmayer, Sheldon D., and Robert J. Wagman. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. (1978). online
Garrettson, Charles L. III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Gould, Lewis L. 1968: The Election That Changed America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993). online
Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976, a primary source. online
Johns, Andrew L. The Price of Loyalty: Hubert Humphrey's Vietnam Conflict (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).
Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. online
Offner, Arnold, "Hubert Humphrey: The Conscience of the Country," New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Pomper, Gerald. "The nomination of Hubert Humphrey for vice-president." Journal of Politics 28.3 (1966): 639-659. online
Reichard, Gary W. "Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey" Minnesota History 56#2 (1998), pp. 50-67 online
Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York : Norton, 1984. online
Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 352.
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1960. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. (Reprint)
External links
University of Texas biography
Hubert H. Humphrey Papers are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Humphrey's complete speech texts and a broad sample of his speech sound recordings have been digitzed by the Minnesota Historical Society under a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Complete text and audio of Humphrey's 1964 speech at the Democratic National Convention – from AmericanRhetoric.com
Account of 1948 Presidential campaign – includes text of Humphrey's speech at the Democratic National Convention
Oral History Interviews with Hubert H. Humphrey, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Information on Humphrey's thought and influence, including quotations from his speeches and writings.
Hubert H. Humphrey at the Macedonian Baptist Church, San Francisco, May 23, 1972 Photographs by Bruce Jackson of Humphrey on his last campaign.
Radio airchecks/recordings of Hubert H. Humphrey from 1946 to 1978 including interviews, radio appearances, newscasts, 1968 election concession speech, etc.
"Hubert Humphrey, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
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"The so-called \"last press conference\" of Richard Nixon took place on November 7, 1962, following his loss to Democratic incumbent Pat Brown in the 1962 California gubernatorial election. Appearing before 100 reporters at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, an embittered Nixon lashed out at the media, proclaiming that \"you don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.\"\n\nNixon's electoral loss in his home state, failing to capture what was then a traditionally Republican state that he had carried in the 1960 presidential election, combined with his actions at the press conference, was seen at the time as permanently damaging his chances at playing a role in national politics. While Nixon played almost no role in Barry Goldwater's resounding defeat in the 1964 presidential election, Nixon won the presidency in the 1968 election, making a political comeback that seemed nearly impossible after the \"last press conference.\"\n\n1962 California gubernatorial election\n\nAt the time, California had been considered a reliably Republican stronghold. Following World War II, all of the state's governors and US Senators had been Republican until Pat Brown was elected Governor of California and Clair Engle was elected U.S. Senator in 1958, bucking the trend.\n\nUS President Dwight Eisenhower, with Nixon as his vice presidential running mate, had carried California in both 1952 and 1956, and Nixon defeated John F. Kennedy there in the 1960 presidential election. Nixon was widely viewed by the California Republican Party as its best hope for defeating the popular Brown to retake the governor's mansion, itself perceived as a prominent stepping stone for a rematch against Kennedy in 1964.\n\nIn a hard and bitterly fought campaign, early polling showed Nixon winning by a significant margin. The polls showed Brown, who made a point of not beginning to campaign until late in the season, closing the margin in the days before the election, but Nixon was still favored to win. Brown won the election, and the 5% margin stunned Nixon and political pundits nationwide.\n\nPress conference\nAs election results came in on Tuesday, November 6, Election Day, Nixon and his staff monitored results at a suite in the Beverly Hilton Hotel in what was becoming a tighter race than expected. Nixon's press secretary Herbert G. Klein held a news conference at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, telling the assembled reporters that despite trailing Brown by 90,000 votes at that time, Nixon was going to bed without issuing a concession, as there appeared to be sufficient uncounted votes in reliably Republican Orange County and San Diego County to overturn Brown's margin.\n\nAs the night progressed, the returns showed a tide of additional votes for Brown, who had pulled 250,000 votes ahead of Nixon. By 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Nixon sent a congratulatory telegram to Brown that read, \"Congratulations on your re-election as Governor. I wish you the best in your great honor and opportunity which you now have to lead the first state in the nation.\" Klein appeared before the press and started his press conference with the announcement that Nixon would not speak to the media; 10 minutes into Klein's press conference, an aide notified him that Nixon would indeed speak to the media.\n\nA tired-looking Nixon spoke with a quavering voice, delivering what was described as a \"15-minute monologue.\" He spent most of the talk criticizing the press, his remarks interrupted only by brief interjections from reporters, but he acknowledged well into his remarks that the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 did not allow his campaign to get his message across during the final two weeks in his election bid. Nixon began his remarks stating that \"now that all the members of the press are so delighted that I have lost, I'd like to make a statement of my own.\" Nixon insisted that the press had attacked him since 1948 following the Alger Hiss case. He said: \"I leave you gentlemen now. And you will now write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you, I want you to know: just think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.\"\n\nHe accused the press of printing articles supporting their favored candidates and stated that while they may \"give... the shaft\" to future candidates, they should have \"one lonely reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then.\" Nixon reserved praise for Carl Greenberg of The Los Angeles Times, who he felt \"wrote every word I said.\" Also praised was Edwin Tetlow of The Daily Telegraph of London.\n\nAftermath\nHaving seen Nixon's remarks, Brown was quoted as stating, \"That's something Nixon's going to regret all his life. The press is never going to let him forget it.\" As described in his obituary in The New York Times, Nixon's farewell-to-politics speech made him appear to be a sore loser violating a cardinal rule of US politics so that it seemed to indicate \"that his political career was over.\"\n\nFive days after the election, Howard K. Smith hosted a documentary, The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon, broadcast as a half-hour special by ABC as part of its Howard K. Smith: News and Comment series. The panelists discussing Nixon's demise were Murray Chotiner and Gerald Ford (one of Nixon's future Vice Presidents and a future United States President himself), who regretted Nixon's departure from politics. Jerry Voorhis, whom Nixon had defeated in a 1946 congressional run, criticized Nixon's tactics in that campaign. Alger Hiss discussed his bitterness at how Nixon had used him to advance his own career at Hiss's expense. While the program was on the air, angry callers clogged the ABC switchboard with complaints, many criticizing the decision to include Hiss, a convicted perjurer, to comment on Nixon. Ultimately, ABC received 80,000 letters and telegrams, almost all of which were critical of the network's special and its choice of panelists.\n\nThe partisan nature of Smith's broadcast may well have been the beginning of Nixon's rehabilitation and ascent towards the presidency, with former Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948, writing to Nixon on November 15, \"It seems to me that Howard K. Smith has been quite helpful, unwittingly.\" Noting that many people were outraged by the broadcast, Dewey went on to say that \"Smith has proved you were right in your comments about the press\".\n\nNixon never showed any remorse for his remarks, instead feeling that the benefits outweighed any possible repercussions, noting in his memoirs:\n\n\"I have never regretted what I said in 'the last press conference.' I believe that it gave the media a warning that I would not sit back and take whatever biased coverage was dished out to me. I think the episode was partially responsible for the much fairer treatment I received from the press during the next few years. From that point of view alone, it was worth it.\"\n\nAs a political term\nThe \"last press conference\" has become a generic term for a politician's valedictory address, one in which all possibilities for future political activity are being abandoned. Alternatively, a politician speaking to the press after an electoral loss who does plan to continue in politics will state that it is not a \"last press conference.\"\n\nIn an editorial, The New York Times noted Gary Hart's statement following his withdrawal from the 1988 Democratic Party presidential process, in which he stated that he was \"angry and defiant\" at a system that \"reduces the press of this nation to hunter and Presidential candidates to being hunted,\" likening his remarks to Nixon's \"last press conference.\"\n\nDan Quayle, effectively conceding defeat to Republican rival George W. Bush in the party's 2000 presidential primaries, noted his relative youth and stated, \"I seriously doubt if this will be my last press conference.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Video of Richard Nixon's November 1962 press conference after losing the California governor's race\n Audio of Richard Nixon's November 1962 press conference after losing the California governor's race\n Text of Richard Nixon's November 1962 press conference after losing the California governor's race\nCorpus of Political Speeches, publicly accessible with speeches from United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, provided by Hong Kong Baptist University Library\n\n1962 speeches\nSpeeches by Richard Nixon\n1962 in American politics\nPolitics of California\n1962 in California\nFarewell addresses\nNovember 1962 events in the United States",
"The term black advance is used by political strategists to refer to an attempt to disrupt the advance operations of political opponents during an election campaign. \n\nNotable examples have included the theft of speeches, break-ins of offices to secure political information, infiltration of advance staff working a particular event, disinformation campaigns to cause lower attendance at rallies, and disrupting rallies through various means.\n\nNotable Examples \n\nIn a California senatorial race, a university student named Dick Tuck was given the task of being the local \"advance\" person for a Richard Nixon speech, even though Tuck worked for the Helen Gahagan Douglas campaign. Tuck accepted the job and proceeded to book a huge auditorium, invite only a handful of people, stalled for a lot of time with a long-winded introduction, and informed the crowd Nixon would speak on the International Monetary Fund, which Nixon did not know much about. \n\nAt the end of the rally, Nixon asked Tuck what his name was, then said, \"Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance.\" Tuck became legendary for what amounted to diligent, low-grade obstruction of Nixon's campaign. In one instance, he switched the signs on two different buses, one labeled \"Nixon\" and one labeled \"VIP's.\" The switch caused Nixon to be delivered to a hotel rather than a live television appearance. \n\nIn another case, Tuck interfered with a \"photo-op,\" by commissioning new signage in Chinese to accompany some \"Welcome Nixon\" signs at a Chinatown, San Francisco, rally. Tuck's signs read, in Chinese, \"What about the huge loan?\" in a reference to a loan that Howard Hughes had made to Nixon's brother Donald. Tuck was reportedly dismayed that \"huge\" was the closest the Chinese characters could come to spelling out the word \"Hughes.\"\n\nReferences \n\nPolitical terminology"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941"
]
| C_3ff4bad8a91d4c58b82b3c31b878ed09_0 | What are the poetic writings of Tagore? | 1 | What are the poetic writings of Rabindranath Tagore? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | true | [
"Prabhat Sangeet is a collection of Bengali poetry by poet Rabindranath Tagore. The book was first published in 1883 and was followed by Tagore's earlier work Sandhya Sangeet (1882). This works also marks the end of the second stage of Rabindranath Tagore's poetic career.\n\nTheme \nIn this book the poet celebrated the nature and joyousness of the world. He also resvisited his childhood. Tagore explained: \"At last one day, I do not know how, the bolted door was broken open and I got back what I had lost. I did not merely get it back but through the barrier of separation, got a fuller idea of it. That is why I got much mom when in the Prabhat Sangeet, I got back the world of my childhood. Thus easy access to nature followed by separation and reunion marked the end of an episode in the first chapter of my life.\"\n\nReferences \n\nPoetry collections by Rabindranath Tagore\nBengali_poetry\n1883_poems\n1883 books",
"The Child is an English poem written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1930. It was his only poem originally written in English. Later, he translated it in Bengali as \"Sishutirtha\". It was one of Tagore's most outstanding poem in his poetic career. It was originally written in a single night.\n\nTheme \nThe poem deals with the values of spirituality and humanism. It says that the journey of every man depends on his hope, faith and duty. According to Tagore himself, both Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ were behind the inspiration for this poem. The poem is titled Child , because too him children were the means through which this world will be redeemed. The poem is written in 8 stanzas and is written long free verse form.\n\nComments and Criticisms\nBy the interpretation of Tanusree Sankar, a famous Bengali dancer the poem is depicted as “a flowing, rhythmic, spiritual journey of Man through the ages, from the bondage of ignorance, ultimately to the freedom of enlightenment and self realization. At the same time, it may also be considered a celebration of the mother – the feminine principle in the universe. “\n\nReferences \n\nPoems by Rabindranath Tagore\n1930 poems\nRabindranath Tagore\nEnglish poems\nWorks by Rabindranath Tagore\nIndian poems\nEnglish-language poems"
]
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"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What are the poetic writings of Tagore?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932),"
]
| C_3ff4bad8a91d4c58b82b3c31b878ed09_0 | Did he received a Nobel Prize? | 2 | Did Rabindranath Tagore receive a Nobel Prize? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"The Nobel Prize in Literature () is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy to authors for outstanding contributions in the field of literature. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, which are awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Swedish Academy. The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to Sully Prudhomme of France. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award prize that has varied throughout the years. In 1901, Prudhomme received 150,782 SEK, which is equivalent to 8,823,637.78 SEK in January 2018. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.\n\nAs of 2021, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 118 individuals. The youngest laureate was Rudyard Kipling, who was 41 years old when he was awarded in 1907. The oldest laureate to receive the prize was Doris Lessing, who was 88 when she was awarded in 2007. It has been awarded posthumously once, to Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931. When he received the award in 1958, Russian-born Boris Pasternak was forced to publicly reject the award under pressure from the government of the Soviet Union. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre made known that he did not wish to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature, as he had consistently refused all official honors in the past. However the Nobel committee does not acknowledge refusals, and includes Pasternak and Sartre in its list of Nobel laureates.\n\nSixteen women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the second highest number of any of the Nobel Prizes behind the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been four instances in which the award was given to two people (1904, 1917, 1966, 1974). There have been seven years in which the Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded (1914, 1918, 1935, 1940–1943). There have been three years for which the Nobel Prize in Literature was delayed one year: the prizes for 1915, 1949 and 2018 were each awarded together with that of the following year in October of the following year. As of 2021, there have been 29 English-speaking laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature, followed by French with 15 laureates and German with 14 laureates.\n\nLaureates\n\nNobel laureates by country\nThe 118 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2021 have come from the following countries:\n\n1Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize in Literature 1913) wrote in Bengali and English, Samuel Beckett (Nobel Prize in Literature 1969) wrote in French and English and Joseph Brodsky (Nobel Prize in Literature 1987) wrote poetry in Russian and prose in English. These three Nobel laureates have been sorted under Bengali, French and Russian, respectively.\n\n2Karl Adolph Gjellerup (Nobel Prize in Literature 1917) wrote in Danish and German.\n\nNobel laureates by gender\nThe 118 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2021 were from the following sexes :\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nA. The information in the country column is according to nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation. This information may not necessarily reflect the recipient's birthplace or citizenship.\n\nCitations\n\nSources\n\n \n\n \nLiterature",
"Since 1949, there have been twenty-nine Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.\n\nThe Nobel Prizes in the above specific sciences disciplines and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly identified with them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields. Of Japanese winners, twelve have been physicists, eight chemists, three for literature, five for physiology or medicine and one for efforts towards peace.\n\nIn the 21st century, in the field of natural science, the number of Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize has been second behind the U.S.\n\nSummary\n\nLaureates\nJapanese citizens\nThe following are the Nobel laureates who were Japanese citizens at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize.\n\nLaureates of Japanese birth and origin who were erstwhile Japanese citizens\nThe following are Nobel laureates of Japanese birth and origin but subsequently acquired foreign citizenship; however, they are still often included in lists of Japanese Nobel laureates.\n\nNotes\nThe 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Charles J. Pedersen has a Japanese mother and his Japanese first name was . Born in Busan, Korea, Japanese protectorate, he moved to Japan with his family at the age of 8 years to attend a convent school in Nagasaki. When he was 10 years old, he moved to Yokohama and entered an international school, called Saint Joseph College in Yamate, Naka-ku.\n\nThe 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Anthony James Leggett spent a year in the group of Professor Takeo Matsubara at Kyoto University in the 1960s, he can speak fluently in Japanese and English. His wife is Haruko Kinase, a Japanese researcher.\n\nAfter the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of Atomic bombings of Hiroshima, attended the Nobel Prize award ceremony, received the Nobel Medal, Nobel Diploma and delivered speeches (Nobel Lecture) on December 2017.\n\nNominations\nPhysics\nShoichi Sakata reported the \"Sakata model\" - a model of hadrons in 1956, that inspired Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig's quark model. Moreover, Kazuhiko Nishijima and Tadao Nakano originally given the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula in 1953. However, 1969 physics prize was only awarded to Murray Gell-Mann. Afterward, Ivar Waller, the member of Nobel Committee for Physics was sorry that Sakata had not received a physics prize.\n\nYoji Totsuka was leading the experiment that the first definitive evidence for neutrino oscillations was measured, via a high-statistics, high-precision measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flux. His Super-K group also confirmed, along with the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), the solution to the solar neutrino problem. The Nobel Prize winning physicist Masatoshi Koshiba was told that if Totsuka could extend his lifespan by eighteen months, he would receive the physics prize.\n\nChemistry\nEiji Osawa prediction of the C60 molecule at Hokkaido University in 1970. He noticed that the structure of a corannulene molecule was a subset of an Association football shape, and he hypothesised that a full ball shape could also exist. Japanese scientific journals reported his idea, but it did not reach Europe or the Americas. Because of this, he was not awarded the 1996 chemistry prize.\n\nSeiji Shinkai invented the first molecular machine in 1979, but he was not awarded the 2016 chemistry prize. On the contrary, Ben Feringa, one of the 2016 Nobel laureates, made a special trip to Japan in the 1980s to ask Shinkai for advice in the research.\n\nPhysiology or Medicine\nKitasato Shibasaburō and Emil von Behring working together in Berlin in 1890 announced the discovery of diphtheria antitoxin serum; Von Behring was awarded the 1901 prize because of this work, but Kitasato was not. Meanwhile, Hideyo Noguchi and Sahachiro Hata, those who missed out on the early Nobel Prize for many times.\n\nKatsusaburō Yamagiwa and his student Kōichi Ichikawa successfully induced squamous cell carcinoma by painting crude coal tar on the inner surface of rabbits' ears. Yamagiwa's work has become the primary basis for research of cause of cancer. However, Johannes Fibiger was awarded the 1926 medicine prize because of his incorrect Spiroptera carcinoma theory, while the Yamagiwa group was snubbed by Nobel Committee. In 1966, the former committee member Folke Henschen claimed \"I was strongly advocate Dr. Yamagiwa deserve the Nobel Prize, but unfortunate it did not realize\". In 2010, the Encyclopædia Britannica 's guide to Nobel Prizes in cancer research mentions Yamagiwa's work as a milestone without mentioning Fibiger.\n\nUmetaro Suzuki completed the first vitamin complex was isolated in 1910. When the article was translated into German, the translation failed to state that it was a newly discovered nutrient, a claim made in the original Japanese article, and hence his discovery failed to gain publicity. Because of this, he was not awarded the 1929 medicine prize.\n\nSatoshi Mizutani and Howard Martin Temin jointly discovered that the Rous sarcoma virus particle contained the enzyme reverse transcriptase, and Mizutani was solely responsible for the original conception and design of the novel experiment that confirmed Temin's provirus hypothesis. However, Mizutani was not awarded the 1975 medicine prize along with Temin.\n\nAs of 2015, there have been seven Japanese who have received the Lasker Award and twelve Japanese who have received the Canada Gairdner International Award, but only three Japanese who have received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.\n\nOthers\nA number of important Japanese native scientists were not nominated for early Nobel Prizes, such as Yasuhiko Kojima and Yasuichi Nagano (jointly discovered Interferon), Jōkichi Takamine (first isolated epinephrine), Kiyoshi Shiga (discovered Shigella dysenteriae), Tomisaku Kawasaki (Kawasaki disease is named after him), and Hakaru Hashimoto. After World War II, Reiji Okazaki and his wife Tsuneko were known for describing the role of Okazaki fragments, but he died of leukemia (sequelae of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima) in 1975 at the age of 44.\n\nMasahiko Aoki, seen as the most likely candidate to become the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for economics, for developing the Institutional Comparative Analysis, he taught at Kyoto University and Stanford University. Unfortunately, he passed away in Palo Alto, California, in July, 2015. He was 77.\n\nSee also\n List of Japanese people\n List of Nobel laureates\n List of Asian Nobel laureates\n List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Tokyo\n List of Nobel laureates affiliated with Kyoto University\n List of Nobel laureates by country\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n All Nobel Laureates from the Nobel Foundation\n Japanese Nobel Laureates — Kyoto University\n 日本人のノーベル賞受賞者一覧 — 京都大学\n Nominees from JAPAN - Nomination Database\n\nNobel laureates\nJapanese"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What are the poetic writings of Tagore?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932),",
"Did he received a Nobel Prize?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3ff4bad8a91d4c58b82b3c31b878ed09_0 | Give some of his writings | 3 | Give some of Rabindranath Tagore's writings. | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
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Google Doodles | true | [
"Richard Methley, also known as Richard Firth or Richard Furth (c.1451–1527/8), was a monk of the Carthusian house of Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire. He is remembered for his writings - some original, and some translations.\n\nLittle is known about his life. He seems to have been born near Leeds (surnames were generally taken from the village of birth, so it is likely he was born in the village of Methley, seven miles south-west of Leeds on the road to Pontefract in Yorkshire), but proof is lacking and his dialect casts doubt on this identification. He entered Mount Grace aged about 25, seemingly spending the rest of his life at that same house, since his writings give no indication that he was ever resident in another house of the Order.\n\nHe wrote primarily for his fellow Carthusians, and so his writings are in Latin except for a short Middle English letter. Methley's own surviving writings date mainly from the 1480s. They have all been printed in modern editions.\n\nMethley produced a Latin glossed translation of The Cloud of Unknowing in 1491 for his fellow Carthusian Thurstan Watson. He also then began a Latin glossed translation of the Middle English version of The Mirror of Simple Souls, though he was unaware that the work had been written by the executed heretic Marguerite Porete. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh prepared an edition of these texts in the 1960s, but it was never published.\n\nHe died, almost certainly at Mount Grace, at some point in the year before 3 May 1528, when his name was entered among the deaths recorded at the Carthusian general chapter.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n The Works of Richard Methley, trans. Barbara Newman, introduction by Laura Saetveit Miles. Cistercian Publications / Liturgical Press, 2021.\n James Hogg, 'Richard Methley's Latin Translations: The Cloud of Unknowing and Porete's The Mirror of Simple Souls', Studies in Spirituality 12, (2004), pp82–104\n Richard Methley, Divino Caligo Ignorancia: A Latin Glossed Version of the Cloud of Unknowing, ed John Clark, Analecta Cartusiana 119/3, (Salzburg: Austria, 2009)\n\nCarthusians\n15th-century English writers\n15th-century Christian mystics\n15th-century Roman Catholics\n15th-century Latin writers\n16th-century English writers\n16th-century male writers\n16th-century Christian mystics\n16th-century Roman Catholics\nWriters from Yorkshire\nYear of birth uncertain\nEnglish Catholic mystics\nEnglish theologians",
"Metaphysical terms in René Guénon's works contains the definition of some metaphysical terms used in René Guénon's writings.\n\nIn his metaphysical writings, René Guénon has stated precise definitions concerning key terms in metaphysics. This article summarizes some of them. Guénon's writings make use of words and terms, of fundamental signification, which receive a precise definition throughout his books. These terms and words, although receiving a usual meaning and being used in many branches of human sciences, have, according to René Guénon, lost substantially their original signification (e.g. words such as \"metaphysics\", \"initiation\", \"mysticism\", \"personality\", \"form\", \"matter\"). This article provides the definition given by René Guénon to some of the words used extensively in his works.\n\nDefinitions\n\nNotes and references\n\nConcepts in metaphysics\nEsotericism"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What are the poetic writings of Tagore?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932),",
"Did he received a Nobel Prize?",
"I don't know.",
"Give some of his writings",
"Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936)."
]
| C_3ff4bad8a91d4c58b82b3c31b878ed09_0 | On what year he's famous? | 4 | On what year was Rabindranath Tagore famous? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"What Made Milwaukee Famous (WMMF) is an American indie rock band from Austin, Texas, United States.\n\nIn 2005, the band performed for Austin City Limits with Franz Ferdinand, making them one of the only unsigned bands to play for the show in its -year history. In 2006, the band signed with Barsuk Records, which re-released their 2004 debut album, Trying to Never Catch Up. Their second album, What Doesn't Kill Us, was released on March 4, 2008. The band released their third album You Can't Fall Off the Floor on January 22, 2013.\n\nSince forming, the band has played at the South by Southwest music festival, the Austin City Limits Festival, and Lollapalooza. They have opened for the Smashing Pumpkins, Arcade Fire, the Black Keys, and Snow Patrol. The band has been featured on in Billboard and Rolling Stone bands-to-watch lists.\n\nAfter promoting You Can't Fall Off the Floor in 2013 and 2014, the band became largely inactive.\n\nOn June 12, 2019, the band announced a set of reunion shows in September 2019, scheduled in Austin and Houston. The three tour dates coincide with a release of a newly remastered 180-gram vinyl of their debut album Trying to Never Catch Up to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of its original release.\n\nName origin\nThe band's name is derived from Jerry Lee Lewis's song \"What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)\".\n\nDiscography\n Trying to Never Catch Up - Barsuk Records (2006)\n The Sugarhill Sessions EP - Barsuk Records (2008)\n What Doesn't Kill Us - Barsuk Records (2008)\n You Can't Fall Off the Floor - Self-released (2013)\n\nReviews\n kMNR CD Review of Trying to Never Catch Up by Chris Andrade on September 20, 2006\n CD Review of Trying to Never Catch Up (mistakenly referred to as Trying Not to Catch Up) by MC Beastie for Soundsect.com\nWhat Doesn't Kill Us Review on IGN by Chad Grischow on March 7, 2008\n CD Review of 'What Doesn't Kill Us' by Ashley Marie Sansotta on Mon Mar 17th, 2008\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial site\nWhat Made Milwaukee Famous on Barsuk.com\nWhat Made Milwaukee Famous live on The Current\nWhat Made Milwaukee Famous MySpace Page\nWhat Made Milwaukee Famous and Sterogum\nWhat Made Milwaukee Famous in studio performance\n\n2002 establishments in Texas\nIndie rock musical groups from Texas\nMusical groups established in 2002\nMusical groups from Austin, Texas\nBarsuk Records artists",
"Elgie Rousseau Stover (September 12, 1938 – July 11, 2011) was an American songwriter, composer, producer and background singer, most famous for his associations with cousin Harvey Fuqua and Marvin Gaye, co-writing two of Gaye's songs from the singer's 1971 album, What's Going On.\n\nGrowing up in Cleveland, Ohio, Stover and his brother Kenneth later moved to Detroit, where the brothers worked closely with Harvey Fuqua on his Tri-Phi Records label. In the late-1960s, after befriending staff from Motown, the brothers signed with the label as staff songwriters and producers. Stover's most famous works came as the result of working so closely with Gaye, with whom he and Kenneth had befriended shortly after they signed with Motown.\n\nStover co-wrote with Marvin, wife Anna and Iris Gordy on The Originals' 1970 classic, \"The Bells\". A year later, Stover's greatest contribution came when he took part in co-writing \"Flying High in the Friendly Sky\" and \"God is Love\" on Marvin's What's Going On. He is credited as the voice that helps open the hit \"What's Going On\" with \"hey man, what's happening?\" and \"everything is everything\". Stover later co-wrote Gaye's 1973 ballad, \"Just to Keep You Satisfied\". Stover is vocally heard shouting and screaming on a demo version of Gaye's later hit, \"Distant Lover\", from a November 1970 session as Gaye struggled with Motown over releasing the \"What's Going On\" single.\n\nIn later years, he served as caterer for Bill Clinton and his Secret Service men.\n\nStover died on 11 July 2011, at Hilton Head Hospital in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. He was survived by a wife, Emma Jones, sons David, Monroe and LaDell, daughters Terri and Tonya and sister Alma.\n\nReferences\n\n1938 births\n2011 deaths\nSinger-songwriters from Ohio\nAfrican-American male singer-songwriters\nAmerican rhythm and blues singer-songwriters\nAmerican soul musicians\nMusicians from Athens, Georgia\nMusicians from Cleveland\nMarvin Gaye\nSongwriters from Athens, Georgia\nSinger-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What are the poetic writings of Tagore?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932),",
"Did he received a Nobel Prize?",
"I don't know.",
"Give some of his writings",
"Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"On what year he's famous?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3ff4bad8a91d4c58b82b3c31b878ed09_0 | Where did Tagore live? | 5 | Where did Rabindranath Tagore live? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"Manasi (; English: \"Mental Images\" or \"The Mind's Creation\") is a 1890 Bengali poetry book written by Rabindranath Tagore. It comes under the \"Manasi-Sonar Tari Group\" of Tagore's poetry writings.\n\nBackground \nTagore was also a traveller. He was in Ghazipur when he wrote most of the poems of Manasi. The natural environment helped Tagore to write the complete rhythmical work. It was his first matured work where he did different types of rhythmical experiments.\n\nList of poems \nThe list is in alphabetical order:\n\n Ananta prem \n Apekha \nAhalyar prati\nAkankhha\nAgantuk\nAtmasamarpan\nAmar sukh\nAshankha\nUshrinkhal\nEkal o sekal\nOgo bhalo kare bole jao\nkobir prati nibedan\nKuhudhani\nKhanik milan\nGupta prem\nGodhuli\nJibonmadhanye\nTabu\n\nDuranta asha\nDesher unnati\nDharmaprachar\nDhyan\nNababangadampattir premalap\nNarir ukti\nNinduker prati nibedan\nNivrita ashram\nNisthur sristi\nNisphal kamana\nNisphal prayas\nPatra\nPatrer pratyasha\nParitykta\nPurusher ukti\nPurbakale\nPrakashbedana\nPrakritir prati\nBangabir\nBadhu\nBarshar dine\nBichhed\nBichheder shanti\nBiday\nBirahananda\nByekta prem\nBhul-bhanga\nBhule\nBhairavi gaan\nMaranswapna\nManasik abhisar\nMaya\nMeghdoot \nMegher khela\nMouna bhasa\n\nShunyo hridayer akankhha\n\nShranti\nShrabaner patra\nSanshayer abeg\nSandhyay\nSindhutaranga\nSurdaser prarthana\nHridayer dhan\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n মানসী on Bengali Wikisource\n rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org\n\n1890 poetry books\nBengali poetry collections\nPoetry collections by Rabindranath Tagore\nRabindranath Tagore\nIndian poetry books",
"The first four decades in the life of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) were formative of both his artistic and much of his political thinking. He was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher, and scholar. His father Debendranath Tagore fought against the British soldiers.\n\nFamily background\nTagore was born at No. 7 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko — the address of his family mansion. In turn, Jorasanko was located in the Bengali section of north Calcutta (now Kolkata), located near Chitpur Road. The area immediately around the Jorasanko Tagore mansion was rife with poverty and prostitution. He was the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875). Debendranath Tagore had formulated the Brahmo faith propagated by his friend, the reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Debendranath became the central figure in Brahmo society after Roy's death, who was addressed out of respect by followers as maharishi. He continued to lead the Adi Brahmo Samaj until he died. Women who married into Tagore's clan were generally from the villages of East Bengal (now Bangladesh)\n\nChildhood (1861–1872)\nTagore was born on 7 May 1861 the youngest son and ninth of thirteen children. As a child, Tagore lived amidst an atmosphere where literary magazines were published, musical recitals were held, and theatre performed. The Jorasanko Tagore were indeed at the center of a large and art-loving social group. Tagore's oldest brother, Dwijendranath, was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first ethnically Indian member appointed to the elite and formerly all-white Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath Tagore, was a talented musician, composer, and playwright. Among his sisters, Swarnakumari Devi earned fame as a novelist in her own right. Jyotirindranath's wife, Kadambari Devi — who was slightly older than Tagore — was a dear friend and a powerful influence on Tagore. Her abrupt suicide in 1884 left him distraught for years, and left a profound mark on the emotional timbre of Tagore's literary life.\n\nFor the first decade or so of his life, Tagore remained distant from his father, who was frequently away touring northern India, England, and other places. Meanwhile, Tagore was mostly confined to the family compound — he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose other than travelling to school. He thereby grew increasingly restless for the outside world, open spaces, and nature. On the other hand, Tagore was intimidated by the mansion's perceived ghostly and enigmatic aura. Further, Tagore was ordered about the house by servants in a period he would later designate as a \"servocracy\". Incidents included servants dunking the heads of Tagore and his siblings into drinking water held by giant clay cisterns — used as a means to quiet the children. In addition, Tagore often refused food to satisfy servants, was confined to a chalk circle by the second-in-command servant named Shyam in parody of an analogous forest trial that Sita underwent in the Ramayana, and was told horrific stories telling the bloody exploits of outlaw dacoits.\n\nTagore was also tutored at home by Hemendranath, his brother. While being physically conditioned — for example, swimming in the Ganges River, taking long treks through hilly areas, and practicing judo and wrestling — he was also given Bengali-language lessons in anatomy, drawing, English language (Tagore's least favorite subject), geography, gymnastics, history, literature, mathematics, and Sanskrit imparted before and after school. Meanwhile, Tagore was developing an aversion towards formal learning and schooling, stating later that the role of teaching was not to explain things, but rather to\n\n{|style=\"border:1px; border: thin solid white; background-color:#f6f6FF; margin:20px;\" cellpadding=\"10\"\n|-\n|\"knock at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this.\"\n|}\n\nTagore started writing poems around age eight, and he was urged by an older brother to recite these to people in the mansion — including to an impressed Brahmo nationalist, newspaper editor, and Hindu Mela organizer. At age eleven, Tagore underwent the upanayan coming-of-age rite: he and two relatives were shaved bald and sent into retreat, where they were to chant and meditate. Tagore instead rollicked, beating drums and pulling his brothers' ears, after which he received a sacred thread of investiture. Afterward, on February 14, 1873, Tagore experienced the first close contact with his father when they set out together from Calcutta on a months-long tour of India. They first made for Shantiniketan (\"Abode of Peace\"), a family estate acquired in 1863 by Debendranath composed of two rooms set amidst a mango grove, trees, and plants. Tagore later recalled his stay among the rice paddies:\n\n{|style=\"border:1px; border: thin solid white; background-color:#f6f6FF; margin:20px;\" cellpadding=\"10\"\n|-\n|\"What I could not see did not take me long to get over — what I did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule, and the only ring which encircled me was the blue of the horizon, drawn around these [rural] solitudes by their presiding goddess. Within this I was free to move about as I chose.\"\n|}\n\nAfter several weeks, they traveled to Amritsar, staying near the Harmandir Sahib and worshipping at a Sikh gurudwara. They also read English- and Sanskrit-language books, exposing Tagore to astronomy, biographies of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Later, in mid-April, Tagore and his father set off for the remote and frigid Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie, India, near what is now Himachal Pradesh's border with Kashmir. There, at an elevation of some 2,300 meters (7,500 feet), they lived in a house high atop Bakrota hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls. Yet Tagore was also made to study lessons — including such things as Sanskrit declensions — starting in the icy pre-dawn twilight. Tagore took a break from his readings for a noontime meal; thereafter, Tagore was to continue his studies, although he was often allowed to fall asleep. Some two months later, Tagore left his father in Dalhousie and journeyed back to Calcutta.\nIn early October 1878, Tagore traveled to England with the intent of becoming a barrister. He first stayed for some months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; there, he attended a Brighton school (not, as has been claimed, Brighton College — his name does not appear in its admissions register). In 1877, his nephew and niece — Suren and Indira, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath — were sent together with their mother (Tagore's sister-in-law) to live with him. Later, after spending Christmas of 1878 with his family, Tagore was escorted by a friend of his elder brother to London; there, Tagore's relatives hoped that he would focus more on his studies. He enrolled at University College London. However, he never completed his degree, leaving England after staying just over a year. This exposure to English culture and language would later percolate into his earlier acquaintance with Bengali musical tradition, allowing him to create new modes of music, poetry, and drama. However, Tagore neither fully embraced English strictures nor his family's traditionally strict Hindu religious observances either in his life or his art, choosing instead to pick the best from both realms of experience.\n\nSee also\n Middle years of Rabindranath Tagore .\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\n .\n .\n\n .\n .\n\nRabindranath Tagore\nVangiya Sahitya Parishad\n19th century in India\nTagore"
]
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"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick"
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick? | 1 | When did Frasier Crane reunite with Lilith and Frederick? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | true | [
"Lilith Sternin (formerly Sternin-Crane) is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. The character first appears as a date for Frasier Crane, though mutual hostility and discomfort causes the evening to end badly. Several months later, Lilith meets Frasier again and, with some help from Frasier's ex-fiancée, Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), they start a romantic relationship, eventually living together, marrying, and having a son, Frederick.\n\nIn the final season of Cheers, Lilith has an affair with another man and leaves Frasier. The affair later unravels and Lilith returns, seeking reconciliation with Frasier. Although Cheers ended ambiguously with regard to Frasier and Lilith's marriage, at the beginning of the spin-off series Frasier, their divorce had been finalized, with Lilith gaining custody of Frederick and remaining in Boston while Frasier has moved back to his hometown of Seattle. Lilith occasionally appears in Frasier, sometimes with Frederick.\n\nRole in Cheers\nLilith debuts in the Cheers episode, \"Second Time Around\" (1986), as Frasier Crane's (Kelsey Grammer) date. In the episode, their first date does not go well. Lilith walks out of the date because she disdains the bar as Frasier's location for their date and Frasier's activities at the bar. In \"Abnormal Psychology\" (1986), they feel mutual attraction again when he becomes accustomed to her makeover done by Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). At first reluctant to start over again, they then decide to go for another date. For years they live together since, as first shown in \"Dinner at Eight-ish\" (1987). \"Our Hourly Bread\" (1988) reveals that they wed one month before the episode. (In \"Smotherly Love\" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage.) In \"The Stork Brings a Crane\" (1989), Lilith gives birth to Frederick during the taxi ride home after false labor in the hospital.\n\nThe tenth-season Cheers episode \"I'm Okay, You're Defective\" (1991) features two plots: one subplot about Lilith pressuring Frasier to finalize his will and one main plot about Sam Malone's (Ted Danson) concern that his sperm count may be low. The episode's epilogue is described as \"Many years later\" with an elderly Lilith and adult Frederick (Rob Neukirch) sitting for the reading of Frasier's will. The lawyer opens the sealed envelope and is surprised to find Sam's sperm count report, which turns out stable. In response to the mix-up, Lilith bitterly remarks, \"That damn bar.\"\n\nIn the eleventh and final season (1992–93), in \"Teaching with the Enemy\" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man – Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt). In \"The Girl in the Plastic Bubble\" (1992), Lilith leaves Frasier, with him contemplating suicide until she promises to him that the marriage can be saved, to live with Pascal in Pascal's experimental underground eco-pod. In \"Is There a Doctor in the Howe?\" (1993), a depressed Frasier almost has sex with Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) in their bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns. In the following episode, \"The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover\" (1993), Lilith storms out of the room to go to Cheers, demanding the others tell her how long Frasier and Rebecca have been having an affair. The other characters have no idea as the affair has barely started that very evening. Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster — Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic, among other mental problems — and she abandons the project to return to Boston. Frasier and Rebecca, and eventually Pascal, converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, suggesting a reconciliation can occur.\n\nRole in Frasier\nIn the spin-off Frasier, Lilith and Frasier have divorced, and Frederick continually lives with Lilith in Boston after Frasier's move to Seattle. In the opening scene of the 1993 pilot episode of Frasier (\"The Good Son\"), Frasier is hosting his call-in radio show and relates the following:\n\nSix months ago, I was living in Boston. My wife had left me, which was very painful. Then she came back to me, which was excruciating. ...So I ended the marriage once and for all, packed up my things, and moved back here to my home town of Seattle.\n\nActress Bebe Neuwirth reprises the role of Lilith in several episodes of Frasier. In her debut Frasier episode, \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith calls Frasier during his radio show, which surprises him, and mocks Frasier's psychiatric advice to his callers, especially one who overeats and whom Lilith attempts to help. Later at his apartment, Lilith reminds him about their times together during marriage. They make love at one point, but end up regretting it, strongly indicating no chance of a lasting reconciliation. Throughout the series, Lilith reappears on occasion, often rekindling hers and Frasier's lingering emotional bond, sometimes over concern about the future of Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also makes recurring appearances.\n\nA running gag throughout Frasier is that Frasier's father and brother, Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce), are never pleased to see Lilith. Martin finds her \"weird\" and usually shouts out in shock when he unexpectedly sees her in his and Frasier's apartment. Niles resents her for mocking the vows at his wedding but forgives her when she apologizes. Lilith's presence frightens Martin's dog Eddie, terrifying the normally defiant dog into obedience. Martin's live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), who fancies herself as having minor psychic abilities, routinely suffers debilitating headaches when Lilith is in town, citing an evil spiritual presence.\n\nLilith marries her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), an MIT seismologist who appears in only one episode \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994). A later episode, \"Room Service\" (1998), reveals that Lilith is recently divorced from Brian after he came out of the closet.\n\nHer final Frasier episode is \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), where Lilith's colleague Nancy (Christine Dunford), sets Frasier up on a blind date with Lilith, having no idea of their mutual history. However, the two meet up for a drink while Lilith is in Seattle and, when it overruns, they both end up cancelling on the blind date (never learning they had been set up with each other). When the two are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple in the next room, Frasier and Lilith successfully resolve the couple's dispute, then spend the night together watching television and finally falling asleep together on the couch. The next morning, they part ways as loving friends without restarting their romance.\n\nCreation and development\n\nA stereotypical \"intelligent ice queen\" Lilith Sternin was supposed to appear in one episode of the fourth season of Cheers, \"Second Time Around\" (1986). However, she was brought back in the fifth season and became a recurring character thereafter. Over the years, like Diane Chambers, an educated Lilith is often mocked yet \"manages to put people in their place.\"\n\nCheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found the chemistry of Frasier and Lilith \"special\" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy mixed with \"Prozac\" and to comfortably write stories about. Nevertheless, Neuwirth did not want to appear as a regular player, and left the role of Lilith on Cheers. Neuwirth's career has since been focused on stage work. However, she made several guest appearances as Lilith in the spin-off Frasier.\n\nThe Frasier episode \"Wheels of Fortune\" (2002) reveals that Lilith has a half-brother, Blaine (Michael Keaton), whom Frasier despises due to Blaine's relentless swindling.\n\nReception \nThis role earned Neuwirth two Emmy Awards as an Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1990 and 1991.\n\nAccording to an April 1–4, 1993, telephone survey of 1,011 people by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center), before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) was voted a favorite character by 26 percent, and Frasier Crane and Lilith Sternin were voted favorites by 1 percent each. In response to a question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted 2 percent to have his own show.\n\nBill Simmons, who at the time worked for ESPN, deemed Lilith Sternin one of his least favorite Cheers characters. Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith \"repressed\" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the \"best sitcom divorced couples\" of all-time.\n\nSteven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier \"fun\" to watch, especially when, in \"Severe Crane Damage\" (1990), she used comparisons between \"the duller good boy\" Frasier and \"the interesting bad boy\" Sam Malone as \"psychiatric examples of the good boy–bad boy syndrome\". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously \"[perfect mismatch]\". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as \"repressed individuals\" and \"separate couple on TV\" with \"acidic and hilarious\" chemistry together.\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nGeneral bibliography \n Bjorklund, Dennis A. Cheers TV Show: A Comprehensive Reference. Praetorian Publishing, 1993. Google Books. Web. 8 April 2012. Another edition\n Gates, Anita. \"TELEVISION; Yes, America Has a Class System. See 'Frasier'. The New York Times, 19 Apr. 1998. Web. 9 Feb. 2012.\n\nAll articles that may contain original research\nTelevision characters introduced in 1986\nCheers characters\nFrasier characters\nFictional female doctors\nFictional American Jews\nAmerican female characters in television\nCrossover characters in television\nFictional American psychiatrists",
"Darklight is a 2004 movie that has links to the Lilith Jewish myth. In the movie, Lilith (Shiri Appleby) and William Shaw (Richard Burgi) join forces to kill the Demonicus, an evil beast that is starting a worldwide plague.\n\nLilith is introduced as Elle, a young woman who lives with a guardian. She has no memory of who she is. Lilith is the first woman created by God. She rejected Adam's belief that he was better than her. God turned her into an immortal demoness who kills the children of Adam and Eve. A secret society, The Faith, was created to destroy Lilith.\n\nAfter murdering the young son of Faith agent William Shaw, Lilith was captured by Shaw, but The Faith chose to let her live. Instead they blocked her memory and powers, and placed her with a foster family as Elle.\n\nWhen the ambitious yet evil scientist Anders Raeborne (David Hewlett) used an extract from Lilith's blood in an attempt to become immortal, he became the evil Demonicus, a powerful monster who transmitted a red plague with his bite and tongue. The leaders of Faith, Prefect (Ross Manarchy) and Chapel (John de Lancie), assigned chief agent William Shaw to help Lilith regain her memories and train her to destroy Demonicus and bring his head to develop an antidote.\n\nCast\n Shiri Appleby ... Lilith / Elle, a young woman tasked with saving the world.\n Richard Burgi ... William Shaw, Lilith's reluctant partner. \n John de Lancie ... Faith Director Chapel \n David Hewlett ... Anders Raeborne, the main villain of the movie and a scientist who seeks to become immortal at all costs, only for him to end up transforming into an entity known as the Demonicus.\n Ross Manarchy ... Prefect\n\nReferences\n\n2004 television films\n2004 films\n2000s fantasy films\nSyfy original films\nAmerican films"
]
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[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | What does she say on the radio show? | 2 | What does Lilith say on the radio show in the Frasier episode "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | true | [
"Annabel Port (born 12 March 1975, Southend-on-Sea) is a British radio presenter. She was the co-presenter of Geoff Lloyd with Annabel Port on Absolute Radio from 2008 until the show ended on 12 April 2017. Previously, she has worked on The Geoff Show and read travel reports on the Pete and Geoff Breakfast Show which she hosted along with Lloyd and Pete Mitchell before the latter's departure in December 2005. On 9 May 2011 she won a Gold Sony Radio Award for Best On-Air Contributor.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nAnnabel Port was educated at Westcliff High School for Girls and Oxford Brookes University.\n\nPrior to working in radio, she taught English to Poles and Mexicans for three years, spent six months doing data input, one week cleaning an old people's home and to her knowledge holds the national record for the 6 years she held a paper round (until the unusually mature age of 18). Port is a former presenter of Whipps Cross Hospital Radio.\n\nBroadcasting career\n\nVirgin Radio\nOn 14 January 2001 she came to Virgin Radio on a work experience placement and was spotted by Lloyd. Since then she has auditioned to be Michael Hutchence's replacement in INXS and has been to circus school. In a show broadcast on 9 September 2005, Sir Paul McCartney assisted her in completing a song about beef tomatoes.\n\nPort worked on the late night show The Geoff Show from its inception in January 2006 until it ended in September 2008, and devised and presented a number of radio features, including \"Porting Controversy\", as well as a velvety broadcast voice on the infamous \"Dirty Book At Bedtime\".\n\nBefore 'The Geoff Show', Port also presented features on the Virgin Radio Breakfast Show, which included \"Annabel's Animals\" where Geoff was asked to guess the identity of animals brought to the studio by local zoos. A more regular feature was \"Annabel's Friday Song\". This is where the aforementioned tomato song with Sir Paul McCartney was aired. This feature is now occasionally resurrected on 'The Geoff Show' when the show does a podcast only show, albeit a \"bawdy\" song not fit for broadcast on UK radio.\n\n\"Annabel's Friday Song\" was usually a short, comical song introducing the coming weekend, with varying topical verses played live by Annabel. The song was introduced as coming \"From the golden throat of miss Annabel Port\".\n\nChorus\nOh what does it mean when the pubs are all packed at five-thirty?\nOh what does it mean when we're all having fish for our tea?\nOh what does it mean when Top of the Pops is on the telly?\nOh yes, the weekend's nearly here;\nSo sing along with meeee-ee hee hee...\n\nAbsolute Radio\n\nOn 29 September 2008, Port moved along with the rest of the team to Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show.\n\nOn 9 May 2011 she won a Gold Sony Radio Award for Best On-Air Contributor, beating, among others, Moira Stuart and Mark Kermode.\n\nAnnabel Port is the author of the music and lyrics of the Dead Dog Memorial Song. The song arose out of a show feature dedicated to listeners' dead dogs; Annabel was set the task of writing a memorial to those dogs. On 15 July 2013 Annabel revealed to the world the Dead Dog Memorial Song on Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show. The song was then recorded by the band The Boy Least Likely To and released on The Hometime Show on 18 July 2013. Profits from the Dead Dog Memorial Song go the Dogs Trust charity.\n\nOther work\n\nIn August 2017, Annabel began co-hosting a podcast with her former Absolute Radio co-host Geoff Lloyd called Adrift. In April 2018, her first book, Annabel vs. The Internet, was published. The book is based on a feature of the same name from the old Hometime radio show in which Geoff would set weekly challenges for her.\n\nSince September 2020, Annabel has been the editor of www.getgetgot.com\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAbsolute Radio\nBritish radio personalities\n1975 births\nAlumni of Oxford Brookes University\nPeople educated at Westcliff High School for Girls\nPeople from Southend-on-Sea",
"The Doug Gottlieb Show is an afternoon drivetime sports talk and debate radio show on Fox Sports Radio that airs weekdays 3–6pm ET.\nThe show was formerly on ESPN Radio from 2006-2012. Since debuting on November 13, 2006, the host of the program has been hosted by former Oklahoma State Cowboys guard and current Fox Sports college basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb. Jon Stashower was the SportsCenter anchor for the show in the 8pm-11pm slot until 2008, when he was moved to the afternoon spot allowing anchors Marc Kestecher and Neil Jackson to split the time between 8pm–11pm. He rejoined the show on February 2, 2009 when it was moved to its earlier slot.\n\nThe debuting of The Doug Gottlieb Show, caused a major shake up in the ESPN Radio lineup, as SportsNation on ESPN Radio was dropped completely from the airwaves and The Brian Kenny Show was created to take up the later slot, from 8pm-10pm.\n\nSince joining ESPN Radio in September 2003, Gottlieb had co-hosted GameNight along with personalities such as Chuck Wilson, Jeff Rickard, John Seibel and Freddie Coleman. Due to Gottlieb's extensive work for ESPN's college basketball coverage, the primary fill-in host for the program during the evening was Andy Gresh but since Gresh's departure from ESPN Radio, Jason Smith was the regular substitute for Gottlieb.\n\nOn July 31, 2012 it was announced that Gottlieb had signed with CBS and would no longer be appearing on ESPN. His last show on ESPN was July 30, and his first with CBS was January 2, 2013.\nGottlieb joined Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports Radio on March 22, 2017. His last show at CBS Sports Radio was on April 14, 2017.\n\nDesign\n\nSegments\nGame Time: Doug Gottlieb Show sports news update correspondent Dan Beyer gives Gottlieb a different game to play each day of the week. Games include: \"Psychic\", \"The Draft\", \"Rank'em\", along with others.\nWhat Does the Fox Say?: Since joining Fox Sports, Gottlieb gives his take on what his Fox Sports colleagues had to say on certain topics.\nThe Press: Gottlieb ends the show by giving his take on current sports news.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican sports radio programs\nSirius XM Radio programs\nConservative talk radio"
]
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[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | Is he reunited with Frederick? | 3 | Is Frasier Crane reunited with son Frederick in the Frasier episode "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"Woodlands, also known as the Frederick Blount Plantation, is a historic plantation house in Gosport, Alabama. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 28, 1980, due to its architectural significance.\n\nBackground\nThe house was built by Frederick Spaight Blount in 1840. Blount was born on November 13, 1808, in North Carolina. He and his half-brother, James W. Bryan, entered into a partnership in 1841, by which Bryan furnished slaves for Woodlands. Blount was noted to be a lawyer in Gosport in 1845. The partnership with his half-brother had soured by 1848, with Bryan attempting to sell the slaves to Alfred Hatch of Greensboro. By the time of the 1850 United States Census he and his wife, Emily James, were living at the plantation with three children and eighteen slaves. The family relocated to Mobile a few years later, where Blount resumed his law practice.\n\nA great scandal, known nationwide at the time, arose in 1858 when Frederick S. Blount accused Henri Arnous de Rivière, a French Army officer, of abducting his daughter, Miss Emily J. Blount, and wife, Mrs. Emily James Blount, and attempting to flee with them to Havana. Blount had allowed the engagement of his daughter to Rivière, but after discovering a supposed previous marriage broke the engagement and forbade Henri Rivière contact with her. Rivière was apprehended on July 4, 1858, at the Hotel Napoleon in Hoboken, New Jersey, but he and Blount's daughter escaped prior to the trial.\n\nThe affair was published in newspapers throughout the South, and in the New York Times. The Blount family was later reunited and were again living in Mobile in 1860. However, Rivière and Miss Blount did eventually marry and have children, living in France. Frederick Blount himself was living in Paris by 1872.\n\nArchitecture\nWoodlands is a wood-frame example of what is known regionally as a Carolina cottage, a form that is very similar in outward appearance to that of a Creole cottage. This form is always one-and-a-half stories with side-gables, with the main roof covering any porches.\n\nThe house also features fine Greek Revival detailing, including eight fluted Doric columns supporting the front porch. The front entrance door, centered in the five bay facade, is surrounded by sidelights and surmounted by a transom light, with these flanked by pilasters and crowned with a simple entablature.\n\nReferences\n\nHouses completed in 1840\nCreole architecture in Alabama\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama\nGreek Revival houses in Alabama\nPlantation houses in Alabama\nNational Register of Historic Places in Clarke County, Alabama\nHouses in Clarke County, Alabama",
"Reunited is a New Zealand television series on TVNZ1. Presented by adoption advocate Alex Gilbert, the series follows six Russian-born adoptees on their own personal story of re-connecting with their birth families. Gilbert also serves as the narrator for the series and as one of the writers.\n\nEpisodes\n\nReception \nIn a review from stuff.co.nz, Reunited was mentioned with Alex Gilbert being adopted himself, he shows compassion with each adopted person during the series. It has also been noted for it's cinematography work.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nReunited on TVNZ on Demand \nReunited on IMDb Reunited\n\nNew Zealand documentary television series"
]
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[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick? | 4 | Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick in the Frasier episode "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | true | [
"Lilith Sternin (formerly Sternin-Crane) is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. The character first appears as a date for Frasier Crane, though mutual hostility and discomfort causes the evening to end badly. Several months later, Lilith meets Frasier again and, with some help from Frasier's ex-fiancée, Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), they start a romantic relationship, eventually living together, marrying, and having a son, Frederick.\n\nIn the final season of Cheers, Lilith has an affair with another man and leaves Frasier. The affair later unravels and Lilith returns, seeking reconciliation with Frasier. Although Cheers ended ambiguously with regard to Frasier and Lilith's marriage, at the beginning of the spin-off series Frasier, their divorce had been finalized, with Lilith gaining custody of Frederick and remaining in Boston while Frasier has moved back to his hometown of Seattle. Lilith occasionally appears in Frasier, sometimes with Frederick.\n\nRole in Cheers\nLilith debuts in the Cheers episode, \"Second Time Around\" (1986), as Frasier Crane's (Kelsey Grammer) date. In the episode, their first date does not go well. Lilith walks out of the date because she disdains the bar as Frasier's location for their date and Frasier's activities at the bar. In \"Abnormal Psychology\" (1986), they feel mutual attraction again when he becomes accustomed to her makeover done by Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). At first reluctant to start over again, they then decide to go for another date. For years they live together since, as first shown in \"Dinner at Eight-ish\" (1987). \"Our Hourly Bread\" (1988) reveals that they wed one month before the episode. (In \"Smotherly Love\" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage.) In \"The Stork Brings a Crane\" (1989), Lilith gives birth to Frederick during the taxi ride home after false labor in the hospital.\n\nThe tenth-season Cheers episode \"I'm Okay, You're Defective\" (1991) features two plots: one subplot about Lilith pressuring Frasier to finalize his will and one main plot about Sam Malone's (Ted Danson) concern that his sperm count may be low. The episode's epilogue is described as \"Many years later\" with an elderly Lilith and adult Frederick (Rob Neukirch) sitting for the reading of Frasier's will. The lawyer opens the sealed envelope and is surprised to find Sam's sperm count report, which turns out stable. In response to the mix-up, Lilith bitterly remarks, \"That damn bar.\"\n\nIn the eleventh and final season (1992–93), in \"Teaching with the Enemy\" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man – Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt). In \"The Girl in the Plastic Bubble\" (1992), Lilith leaves Frasier, with him contemplating suicide until she promises to him that the marriage can be saved, to live with Pascal in Pascal's experimental underground eco-pod. In \"Is There a Doctor in the Howe?\" (1993), a depressed Frasier almost has sex with Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) in their bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns. In the following episode, \"The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover\" (1993), Lilith storms out of the room to go to Cheers, demanding the others tell her how long Frasier and Rebecca have been having an affair. The other characters have no idea as the affair has barely started that very evening. Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster — Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic, among other mental problems — and she abandons the project to return to Boston. Frasier and Rebecca, and eventually Pascal, converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, suggesting a reconciliation can occur.\n\nRole in Frasier\nIn the spin-off Frasier, Lilith and Frasier have divorced, and Frederick continually lives with Lilith in Boston after Frasier's move to Seattle. In the opening scene of the 1993 pilot episode of Frasier (\"The Good Son\"), Frasier is hosting his call-in radio show and relates the following:\n\nSix months ago, I was living in Boston. My wife had left me, which was very painful. Then she came back to me, which was excruciating. ...So I ended the marriage once and for all, packed up my things, and moved back here to my home town of Seattle.\n\nActress Bebe Neuwirth reprises the role of Lilith in several episodes of Frasier. In her debut Frasier episode, \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith calls Frasier during his radio show, which surprises him, and mocks Frasier's psychiatric advice to his callers, especially one who overeats and whom Lilith attempts to help. Later at his apartment, Lilith reminds him about their times together during marriage. They make love at one point, but end up regretting it, strongly indicating no chance of a lasting reconciliation. Throughout the series, Lilith reappears on occasion, often rekindling hers and Frasier's lingering emotional bond, sometimes over concern about the future of Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also makes recurring appearances.\n\nA running gag throughout Frasier is that Frasier's father and brother, Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce), are never pleased to see Lilith. Martin finds her \"weird\" and usually shouts out in shock when he unexpectedly sees her in his and Frasier's apartment. Niles resents her for mocking the vows at his wedding but forgives her when she apologizes. Lilith's presence frightens Martin's dog Eddie, terrifying the normally defiant dog into obedience. Martin's live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), who fancies herself as having minor psychic abilities, routinely suffers debilitating headaches when Lilith is in town, citing an evil spiritual presence.\n\nLilith marries her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), an MIT seismologist who appears in only one episode \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994). A later episode, \"Room Service\" (1998), reveals that Lilith is recently divorced from Brian after he came out of the closet.\n\nHer final Frasier episode is \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), where Lilith's colleague Nancy (Christine Dunford), sets Frasier up on a blind date with Lilith, having no idea of their mutual history. However, the two meet up for a drink while Lilith is in Seattle and, when it overruns, they both end up cancelling on the blind date (never learning they had been set up with each other). When the two are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple in the next room, Frasier and Lilith successfully resolve the couple's dispute, then spend the night together watching television and finally falling asleep together on the couch. The next morning, they part ways as loving friends without restarting their romance.\n\nCreation and development\n\nA stereotypical \"intelligent ice queen\" Lilith Sternin was supposed to appear in one episode of the fourth season of Cheers, \"Second Time Around\" (1986). However, she was brought back in the fifth season and became a recurring character thereafter. Over the years, like Diane Chambers, an educated Lilith is often mocked yet \"manages to put people in their place.\"\n\nCheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found the chemistry of Frasier and Lilith \"special\" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy mixed with \"Prozac\" and to comfortably write stories about. Nevertheless, Neuwirth did not want to appear as a regular player, and left the role of Lilith on Cheers. Neuwirth's career has since been focused on stage work. However, she made several guest appearances as Lilith in the spin-off Frasier.\n\nThe Frasier episode \"Wheels of Fortune\" (2002) reveals that Lilith has a half-brother, Blaine (Michael Keaton), whom Frasier despises due to Blaine's relentless swindling.\n\nReception \nThis role earned Neuwirth two Emmy Awards as an Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1990 and 1991.\n\nAccording to an April 1–4, 1993, telephone survey of 1,011 people by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center), before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) was voted a favorite character by 26 percent, and Frasier Crane and Lilith Sternin were voted favorites by 1 percent each. In response to a question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted 2 percent to have his own show.\n\nBill Simmons, who at the time worked for ESPN, deemed Lilith Sternin one of his least favorite Cheers characters. Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith \"repressed\" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the \"best sitcom divorced couples\" of all-time.\n\nSteven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier \"fun\" to watch, especially when, in \"Severe Crane Damage\" (1990), she used comparisons between \"the duller good boy\" Frasier and \"the interesting bad boy\" Sam Malone as \"psychiatric examples of the good boy–bad boy syndrome\". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously \"[perfect mismatch]\". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as \"repressed individuals\" and \"separate couple on TV\" with \"acidic and hilarious\" chemistry together.\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nGeneral bibliography \n Bjorklund, Dennis A. Cheers TV Show: A Comprehensive Reference. Praetorian Publishing, 1993. Google Books. Web. 8 April 2012. Another edition\n Gates, Anita. \"TELEVISION; Yes, America Has a Class System. See 'Frasier'. The New York Times, 19 Apr. 1998. Web. 9 Feb. 2012.\n\nAll articles that may contain original research\nTelevision characters introduced in 1986\nCheers characters\nFrasier characters\nFictional female doctors\nFictional American Jews\nAmerican female characters in television\nCrossover characters in television\nFictional American psychiatrists",
"\"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" is the 16th episode of the second season of the American sitcom Frasier. This episode originally aired on Tuesday, February 21, 1995, on NBC, intended as part of a February ratings sweep by the network. It features a special guest appearance of Ted Danson as Sam Malone, a recovering sex addict, bartender and ex-baseball player. In this episode Sam arrives in Seattle to see his old friend Frasier, and then is introduced to Frasier's family at a dinner in Frasier's home, where the inconsistencies about Martin's supposed \"death\" are cleared up. While visiting Seattle, Sam ends his relationship with a woman named Sheila (Téa Leoni) after discovering her dalliance with other men. Danson's appearance in this episode has received mixed reviews, and the positive highlight about it is his interaction with the cast of Frasier.\n\nPlot\n\nAct One \nBartender and ex-baseball player Sam Malone (Ted Danson) from Cheers arrives in Seattle to see his psychiatrist friend Frasier Crane at the KACL-FM radio station, and then Frasier becomes so happy and overjoyed by his old friend's arrival that he almost ruins the segment of his show. According to Sam, after the 1993 Cheers finale, \"One for the Road,\" the characters' lives have radically changed since Frasier left Boston. Former bar manager of Cheers, Rebecca Howe, was dumped by her plumber husband Don Santry, who became rich after a successful plumbing invention, and then she became despondent and settled her life back at the bar without intent to work there again. After his term at Congress was over, Woody Boyd became a bartender again and he and his wife, Kelly Gaines-Boyd, have a son who against all odds is smart. Bar regular and postman Cliff Clavin still lives with his mother, stopped attending the bar, and has not left home after he read information about a flesh-eating bacteria.\n\n\"Martin Rises from the Dead\"\nThen Frasier brings Sam home for dinner and introduces him to his family: his father Martin (John Mahoney) who is an ex-cop and a baseball fan of Sam Malone, his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) who is also a psychiatrist, and his housekeeper Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves). During the family introduction, Sam explains that, as mentioned in Cheers, Frasier's father was supposed to be a dead scientist and that Frasier is supposed to be the only child, much to the dismay of Frasier's family. Frasier explains the inconsistency, indicating that he had had an ugly argument with Martin at the time, which motivated him into making up the \"dead scientist father\" story.\n\nDaphne is charmed when Sam flirts with her, which enrages Niles. Frasier tells Niles that Sam has a sexual addiction and assures Niles that Sam still attends group meetings for sex addicts, recommended by Frasier in the Cheers episode \"The Guy Can't Help It\" (1993).\n\nAfter the family gathering, Frasier and Sam are alone in the living room. Sam tells Frasier that he left his fiancée Sheila, with whom Sam has had a relationship for six months, at the wedding altar the previous day. Frasier assures Sam that he has wedding jitters and that he is ready to leave his old empty sex life behind in favor of a committed relationship. Frasier advises him to continue this relationship and to be always honest to her, especially about leaving her at the altar.\n\n\"A Dirty Little Secret\"\n\nAt the café, Sam introduces his fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni) to Frasier, who is horrified to recognized her as a woman he slept with three months ago. Then Frasier goes to the hotel room, where she and Sam are staying. Sheila explains that she is also a sex addict, like Sam, and that Sam and she met for the first time at a group meeting. Frasier begs her not to tell Sam about their short-time affair. Suddenly, Sam arrives into the room and then, in order to be honest to her, confesses to Sheila that, on the day of their engagement, Sam slept with another woman twice. Then Sheila confesses that she slept with two regular patrons: Paul (\"short, bald, fat\") and then Cliff Clavin. Though he forgives her dalliance with Paul, Sam is disgusted to learn about Cliff and breaks off his relationship with Sheila. (When she turns to Frasier for help, he is equally disgusted about Cliff.)\n\nAt Frasier's car, Sam, to Frasier's relief, still does not find out about Frasier's fling with Sheila, yet Sam is still bothered that she and Cliff had a fling, and is relieved to go back to Boston. Frasier assures Sam that Sam has proven himself to be competent for a \"meaningful\" committed relationship, even if Sheila is \"not the one.\" However, Sam considers pursuing a cocktail waitress at an airport bar, disappointing Frasier.\n\nReception \nThis episode originally aired on NBC on Tuesday, February 21, 1995, at 9:00 pm (Eastern) / 8:00 pm (Central) as part of the February ratings sweep, rivaling against ABC's Home Improvement, CBS's television movie Falling for You, and Fox's broadcast of the 1992 film Housesitter, and landed on No. 6 with an 18.8 rating and a 27 share.\n\nMike Drew from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel rated this episode three and a half stars out of four and praised Cheers character Sam Malone's guest appearance in this episode, even if he disdained Sam's sexual escapades. John Martin, a syndicate writer from The New York Times, found Sam's interaction with characters of Frasier brilliant, especially Daphne Moon. Ginny Holbert from Chicago Sun-Times rated this episode, three and a half stars out of four, as well, and called it a must for Cheers fans and trivia buffs who wanted inconsistencies of Frasier's family background \"[cleared] up\". Dusty Saunders from Rocky Mountain News was marveled by the comparison between \"the macho Sam and the unathletic Niles\" and presented blend of \"the macho, rakish spirit of Cheers and the neurotic, off-the-wall style of Frasier.\" Rick Kushman from The Sacramento Bee praised a reunion between two friends, Sam Malone and Frasier Crane, even when they are different from each other.\n\nOn the other hand, Donna Callea from The Daytona Beach News-Journal found this episode disappointing, called Ted Danson's guest reprisal as Sam Malone a ratings ploy, considered Danson's performance apathetic and uncomforting, and saw a reunion between Sam and Frasier Crane not well-executed. Frazier Moore from The Associated Press called Sam's appearance a ratings ploy as well, but a must-see for a Cheers fan and any other viewer who lacks interest on the show Frasier. Elaine Liner from Corpus Christi Caller-Times found Sam Malone \"sheepish\" in this episode. Scott D. Pierce from Deseret News found this episode not as good as previous Frasier episodes that featured Frasier's ex-wife, Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth), Sam \"old and [tiring]\" in Frasier, and Danson's performance \"lethargic\", but Pierce found some of its moments funny, especially from \"fresh\" Niles. Reviews from Frasier Online, a fan dedication website for the show Frasier, were mixed. Some liked Sam's interaction with Frasier's family but found a romantic story and its scenes between Ted Danson and Téa Leoni poorly executed. One found Cheers references not suitable for viewers not familiar with the show's predecessor Cheers, especially ones used for humor.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n Outtakes of \"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" at Movie Mistakes\n Transcript at KACL780.net\n\n1995 American television episodes\nFrasier episodes\nTelevision episodes directed by James Burrows"
]
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[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | What else happens in the reunion episode? | 5 | Besides Frasier being proven as unathletic, what else happens in the Frasier reunion episode? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"What Really Happens in Thailand is an Australian reality documentary television series that airs on the Seven Network.\n\nThe program was first announced at the network's upfronts in 2014. The series is a spin-off of the 2014 program What Really Happens in Bali and produced by the same production company McAvoy Media. The series films the activities and situations of Australian tourists and expats in various locations throughout Thailand, including nightclubs, hospitals and cosmetic surgery centres.\n\nBroadcast\nThe series premiered in Australia on the Seven Network on 14 September 2015, airing on Monday nights until the fifth episode of the series, when the show was moved to Thursday nights. After episode six, the series was pulled from the schedule until the television non-ratings period, when episode seven premiered on a Tuesday night however it did not reach the top 20 most watched programs for the first time in the program's season.\n\nEpisodes\n\nSpin-off\nA second spin-off of the format followed in 2016, titled What Really Happens on the Gold Coast.\n\nReferences\n\nSeven Network original programming\n2015 Australian television series debuts\nAustralian factual television series\nEnglish-language television shows\nTelevision shows set in Thailand\nAustralian television spin-offs",
"The second season of the reality television series Prince Charming premiered on October 12, 2020 streaming on premium sector of TVNOW and began airing on television on October 26, 2020 on VOX. The second Prince Charming was 29-year-old marketing manager Alexander Schäfer from Frankfurt.\n\nThe season ended on December 14, 2020 (TVNOW) and on December 21, 2020 (VOX), and Lauritz Hofmann was initially named the winner. In the reunion, Schäfer and Hofmann announced that they didn't become a couple, after filming the final.\n\nFilming\nLike in the first season, also the second season of Prince Charming was shot in Greece in Crete in August 2020.\n\nContestants\nThis season was featured 20 contestants.\n\nContestant Progress\n\n The contestant had to give up his tie and was eliminated.\n The contestant was the runner up.\n The contestant won Prince Charming.\n\nEpisodes\n\nEpisode 1\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 2\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 3\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 4\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 5\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 6\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 7\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 8\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 9\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX:\n\nEpisode 10 - The Big Reunion\nOriginal airdate:TVNOW: VOX: \n\nIn The Big Reunion (German: Das große Wiedersehen) around three months after the shooting in Crete, this year's Prince Charming, Alexander Schäfer, and some of the single men who courted him meet again for the first time and review what has happened since the last episode. In addition to Prince Alexander, guests in the studio are the winner Lauritz, the runner-up Vincent and the candidates Gino, Andrea, David, Michael, Jan and Joachim. The host was Lola Weippert.\n\nSpin-off shows\n\nPodcast\n\nReferences\n\n2020 German television seasons"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | How does Frasier react to the engagement? | 6 | How does Frasier react to Lilith's engagement in the Frasier episode "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | dismay. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"\"Something Borrowed, Someone Blue\" is the twenty-third and twenty-fourth episode and was the final episode in season 7 of the American sitcom Frasier. It is an hour-long episode and brings to a climax the romantic character arc between Niles and Daphne, a significant running plotline for the first seven years of the show's production.\n\nPlot\n\nPart I\nFrasier, Daphne, Niles, Mel and Martin return from the funeral of Morrie, the doorman of Elliott Bay Towers. Daphne in particular is very emotional, which everyone attributes to nerves before the wedding. Martin bears a final gift from Morrie; a rare bottle of wine retrieved from France following the Second World War. Simon, Daphne's boorish and obnoxious brother, arrives unexpectedly, and Martin invites him to stay in his Winnebago. Mel leaves to prepare for a mid-week retreat to celebrate her first six months with Niles, while he confesses to Frasier that he feels anxious about their relationship. After Niles denies that he still possesses lingering feelings for Daphne, Frasier urges his brother to seize the moment and move on from his habitual sense of caution.\n\nWhen Martin gives Daphne the bottle of wine as a wedding gift, Daphne breaks down once more. Frasier is left to comfort Daphne, and Daphne reveals that she knows about Niles' seven-year crush on her. She has tormented herself about her own feelings towards Niles, and believes that she has fallen in love with him in return. Despite her impending marriage, Frasier urges her to confront Niles and discuss this with him before her marriage. When Niles returns, however, he has exciting news: he has, on impulse, eloped with Mel and married her.\n\nPart II\nFrasier arrives at the luxurious hotel where Daphne and Donny's wedding will take place, hoping to speak to Daphne about recent events. Daphne brushes the matter off, dismissing her feelings as just nerves, and gives Frasier the bottle of wine to thank him for all his kindness and support. They are interrupted by the arrival of Daphne's overbearing and hypercritical mother, Gertrude.\n\nThat night following the rehearsal dinner, Frasier and Martin discuss Daphne and Niles. Frasier confesses that he does not believe either Daphne or Niles when they claim to be happy, leading Martin to warn him about interfering; two marriages are at stake. Meanwhile, Niles and Daphne join each other for a dance, and Frasier watches them as they dance close together. Cornering Niles in a hotel room, Frasier reveals that Daphne knows how he feels towards her, and that there is a possibility she shares his feelings. Niles is tormented, but resolves to talk to Daphne to find out. Managing to get Daphne alone, Niles confesses that Frasier has told him of her feelings towards him, and tells her that he loves her. Before they can discuss anything, they are constantly interrupted, firstly by Martin, then by Donny, then Mel, and finally by Daphne's entire family. Escaping the party to the balcony, the two stand together awkwardly, until Daphne takes action, and the two share their first kiss. She then tells him that they have made too many commitments to others to back out now. Niles is left on the balcony, alone.\n\nThe next morning, as the wedding takes place, Niles sits in the front cabin of the Winnebago, unable to watch Daphne be married. Martin and Frasier join him, Frasier bringing with him the rare bottle of wine to honour Niles' bravery in at last opening his heart to Daphne. The three men prepare to enjoy a glass, only to discover that the wine is undrinkable; unfortunately, Morrie kept his wine rack in the boiler room. Frasier and Martin leave to attend the wedding, leaving Niles alone, until a knock at the door rouses him. He turns to see Daphne before him in full wedding dress, asking him if he wants to go on a date. She has chosen him after all, and as the two prepare to flee the wedding, Daphne realises that she can finally call him \"Niles\".\n\nReception and nominations\nThe episode was nominated for multiple Emmys. It was one of the most watched episodes of the 2000s.\n\nReferences\n\n2000 American television episodes\nFrasier episodes\nTelevision episodes about weddings",
"\"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" is the 16th episode of the second season of the American sitcom Frasier. This episode originally aired on Tuesday, February 21, 1995, on NBC, intended as part of a February ratings sweep by the network. It features a special guest appearance of Ted Danson as Sam Malone, a recovering sex addict, bartender and ex-baseball player. In this episode Sam arrives in Seattle to see his old friend Frasier, and then is introduced to Frasier's family at a dinner in Frasier's home, where the inconsistencies about Martin's supposed \"death\" are cleared up. While visiting Seattle, Sam ends his relationship with a woman named Sheila (Téa Leoni) after discovering her dalliance with other men. Danson's appearance in this episode has received mixed reviews, and the positive highlight about it is his interaction with the cast of Frasier.\n\nPlot\n\nAct One \nBartender and ex-baseball player Sam Malone (Ted Danson) from Cheers arrives in Seattle to see his psychiatrist friend Frasier Crane at the KACL-FM radio station, and then Frasier becomes so happy and overjoyed by his old friend's arrival that he almost ruins the segment of his show. According to Sam, after the 1993 Cheers finale, \"One for the Road,\" the characters' lives have radically changed since Frasier left Boston. Former bar manager of Cheers, Rebecca Howe, was dumped by her plumber husband Don Santry, who became rich after a successful plumbing invention, and then she became despondent and settled her life back at the bar without intent to work there again. After his term at Congress was over, Woody Boyd became a bartender again and he and his wife, Kelly Gaines-Boyd, have a son who against all odds is smart. Bar regular and postman Cliff Clavin still lives with his mother, stopped attending the bar, and has not left home after he read information about a flesh-eating bacteria.\n\n\"Martin Rises from the Dead\"\nThen Frasier brings Sam home for dinner and introduces him to his family: his father Martin (John Mahoney) who is an ex-cop and a baseball fan of Sam Malone, his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) who is also a psychiatrist, and his housekeeper Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves). During the family introduction, Sam explains that, as mentioned in Cheers, Frasier's father was supposed to be a dead scientist and that Frasier is supposed to be the only child, much to the dismay of Frasier's family. Frasier explains the inconsistency, indicating that he had had an ugly argument with Martin at the time, which motivated him into making up the \"dead scientist father\" story.\n\nDaphne is charmed when Sam flirts with her, which enrages Niles. Frasier tells Niles that Sam has a sexual addiction and assures Niles that Sam still attends group meetings for sex addicts, recommended by Frasier in the Cheers episode \"The Guy Can't Help It\" (1993).\n\nAfter the family gathering, Frasier and Sam are alone in the living room. Sam tells Frasier that he left his fiancée Sheila, with whom Sam has had a relationship for six months, at the wedding altar the previous day. Frasier assures Sam that he has wedding jitters and that he is ready to leave his old empty sex life behind in favor of a committed relationship. Frasier advises him to continue this relationship and to be always honest to her, especially about leaving her at the altar.\n\n\"A Dirty Little Secret\"\n\nAt the café, Sam introduces his fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni) to Frasier, who is horrified to recognized her as a woman he slept with three months ago. Then Frasier goes to the hotel room, where she and Sam are staying. Sheila explains that she is also a sex addict, like Sam, and that Sam and she met for the first time at a group meeting. Frasier begs her not to tell Sam about their short-time affair. Suddenly, Sam arrives into the room and then, in order to be honest to her, confesses to Sheila that, on the day of their engagement, Sam slept with another woman twice. Then Sheila confesses that she slept with two regular patrons: Paul (\"short, bald, fat\") and then Cliff Clavin. Though he forgives her dalliance with Paul, Sam is disgusted to learn about Cliff and breaks off his relationship with Sheila. (When she turns to Frasier for help, he is equally disgusted about Cliff.)\n\nAt Frasier's car, Sam, to Frasier's relief, still does not find out about Frasier's fling with Sheila, yet Sam is still bothered that she and Cliff had a fling, and is relieved to go back to Boston. Frasier assures Sam that Sam has proven himself to be competent for a \"meaningful\" committed relationship, even if Sheila is \"not the one.\" However, Sam considers pursuing a cocktail waitress at an airport bar, disappointing Frasier.\n\nReception \nThis episode originally aired on NBC on Tuesday, February 21, 1995, at 9:00 pm (Eastern) / 8:00 pm (Central) as part of the February ratings sweep, rivaling against ABC's Home Improvement, CBS's television movie Falling for You, and Fox's broadcast of the 1992 film Housesitter, and landed on No. 6 with an 18.8 rating and a 27 share.\n\nMike Drew from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel rated this episode three and a half stars out of four and praised Cheers character Sam Malone's guest appearance in this episode, even if he disdained Sam's sexual escapades. John Martin, a syndicate writer from The New York Times, found Sam's interaction with characters of Frasier brilliant, especially Daphne Moon. Ginny Holbert from Chicago Sun-Times rated this episode, three and a half stars out of four, as well, and called it a must for Cheers fans and trivia buffs who wanted inconsistencies of Frasier's family background \"[cleared] up\". Dusty Saunders from Rocky Mountain News was marveled by the comparison between \"the macho Sam and the unathletic Niles\" and presented blend of \"the macho, rakish spirit of Cheers and the neurotic, off-the-wall style of Frasier.\" Rick Kushman from The Sacramento Bee praised a reunion between two friends, Sam Malone and Frasier Crane, even when they are different from each other.\n\nOn the other hand, Donna Callea from The Daytona Beach News-Journal found this episode disappointing, called Ted Danson's guest reprisal as Sam Malone a ratings ploy, considered Danson's performance apathetic and uncomforting, and saw a reunion between Sam and Frasier Crane not well-executed. Frazier Moore from The Associated Press called Sam's appearance a ratings ploy as well, but a must-see for a Cheers fan and any other viewer who lacks interest on the show Frasier. Elaine Liner from Corpus Christi Caller-Times found Sam Malone \"sheepish\" in this episode. Scott D. Pierce from Deseret News found this episode not as good as previous Frasier episodes that featured Frasier's ex-wife, Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth), Sam \"old and [tiring]\" in Frasier, and Danson's performance \"lethargic\", but Pierce found some of its moments funny, especially from \"fresh\" Niles. Reviews from Frasier Online, a fan dedication website for the show Frasier, were mixed. Some liked Sam's interaction with Frasier's family but found a romantic story and its scenes between Ted Danson and Téa Leoni poorly executed. One found Cheers references not suitable for viewers not familiar with the show's predecessor Cheers, especially ones used for humor.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n Outtakes of \"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" at Movie Mistakes\n Transcript at KACL780.net\n\n1995 American television episodes\nFrasier episodes\nTelevision episodes directed by James Burrows"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay.",
"How does Frasier react to the engagement?",
"dismay."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | How does the episode end? | 7 | How does the Frasier episode "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" end? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"\"When the Spirit Moves You\" is the sixteenth episode of the 1969 ITC British television series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) starring Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope. The episode was first broadcast on 2 January 1970 on ITV and was directed by Ray Austin.\n\nAnnette Andre does not appear in this episode. Unlike \"The House on Haunted Hill\", the non-appearance of Andre's character Jeannie Hopkirk is not explained in this episode. At the end of this episode Andre does receive a credit despite not appearing in it. At the end of \"The House on Haunted Hill\", Andre received no credit.\n\nSynopsis\nJeff becomes involved with a bumbling alcoholic conman named Bream and a stash of $125,000 of stolen bonds from the United States that a criminal racket are after. Jeff goes ahead with a deal to exchange the bonds that he and Bream have for $125,000 of the criminal racket's cash. When Jeff and Bream manage to double-cross them, they turn the tables and come within seconds of blowing up Jeff with the safe that he deposited the money in.\n\nOverview\nIn this episode Marty finds that he is able to communicate with the alcoholic Bream (Anton Rodgers) but only when he is very drunk from whisky. This is also one of the first episodes where Marty physically threatens to haunt somebody as a traditional ghost would, in order to force him to give Jeff a helping hand.\n\nCast\n\nMike Pratt as Jeff Randall\nKenneth Cope as Marty Hopkirk\nAnton Rodgers .... Calvin P. Bream\nPenny Brahms .... Girl in Luxury Flat\nPeter J. Elliott .... Wilks\nMichael Gothard .... Perrin\nRichard Kerley .... Sgt. Hinds\nReg Lye .... Manny\nAnthony Marlowe .... Cranley\nKieron Moore .... Miklos Corri\nBill Reed .... Parkin\n\nProduction\nAlthough the 16th episode in the series, That's How Murder Snowballs was the 13th episode to be shot, filmed between November 1968 and March 1969.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nEpisode overview at Randallandhopkirk.org.uk\nFilming locations at Randallandhopkirk.org.uk\n\nRandall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episodes\n1970 British television episodes",
"Economics U$A is a telecourse series covering the subjects of microeconomics and macroeconomics. The original series debuted in 1985 and has been updated several times since then (most recently in 2011). The series was produced by the Educational Film Center in Annandale, Virginia, with funding from the Annenberg-CPB Project (now Annenberg Media) and broadcast on PBS and educational stations.\n\nThe series was hosted by David Schoumacher, with the help of economic analysts Richard T. Gill and Nariman Behravesh (Chief Economist and Executive Vice President, Global Insight). The series consist largely of interviews of government officials, economic analysts, and people who have experienced important events for the economy of the United States. Herbert Stein, an economic advisor for the Nixon administration, is one of the many guests interviewed in the series.\n\nEpisode guide\n Episode 1 - Resources and Scarcity: What Is Economics All About?\n Wilderness preservation and WWII productivity show how society allocates and transforms resources.\n Episode 2 - Markets and Prices: Do They Meet Our Needs?\n Developer William J. Levitt's low-cost housing and Reggie Jackson's contract help explain the powerful forces of supply and demand.\n Episode 3 - U.S. Economic Growth: What Is the Gross National Product?\n This episode documents the GNP's greatest achievements and failures since its introduction in the 1930s.\nGuests: Robert R. Nathan, War Production Broad, World War II; Alfred E. Kahn, Economist; John Kendrick, Economist; George Washington University; Gaylord Nelson, Counselor, The Wilderness Society\n Episode 4 - Booms and Busts: What Causes the Business Cycle?\n America's roller-coaster economy is examined in light of the economic theories of Marx, Schumpeter, Keynes, and Say.\n Episode 5 - John Maynard Keynes: What Did We learn from the Great Depression?\n Episode 6 - Fiscal Policy: Can We Control the Economy?\n Episode 7 - Inflation: How Did the Spiral Begin?\nInflation in the 1960s - What caused that spiral and how did inflation get out of control?\nGuests: Walter Heller, Former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisors; James Duesenberry, Former Member, Council of Economic Advisors\n Episode 8 - The Banking System: Why Must It Be Protected?\n The S&L crisis is reviewed with a discussion of deposit insurance and the accountability of financial institutions. This program was revised in 1992.\n Episode 9 - The Federal Reserve: Does Money Matter?\n Episode 10 - Stagflation: Why Couldn't We Beat It?\n Episode 11 - Productivity: Can We Get More For Less?\nGuests: Arthur Laffer, Economist\n Episode 12 - Federal Deficits: Can We Live With Them?\n Episode 13 - Monetary Policy: How Well Does It Work?\n Episode 14 - Stabilization Policy: Are We Still In Control?\n Episode 15 - The Firm: How Can We Keep Costs Down?\n This program looks at the economic factors behind Coke's secret formula change, Studebaker's demise, and The Asbury Park Press.\n Episode 16 - Supply and Demand: What Sets the Price?\n Episode 17 - Perfect Competition & Inelastic Demand: Can the Farmer Make a Profit?\n This program presents the inside story of American farming's crises from the 1920s to the present.\n Episode 18 - Economics Efficiency: What Price Controls?\n Rent control in New York City explains the effect of wage and price controls in a free market economy.\n Episode 19 - Monopoly: Who's In Control?\n Episode 20 - Oligopoly: Whatever Happened to Price Competition?\n Episode 21 - Pollution: How Much Is a Clean Environment Worth?\n The private and social costs of pollution and the international response to global warming are explored.\n Episode 22 - Labor & Management: How do They Come to Terms?\n Episode 23 - Profits and Interest: Where Is the Best Return?\n Episode 24 - Reducing Poverty: What Have We Done?\n Episode 25 - Economic Growth: Can We Keep Up the Pace?\n Episode 26 - Public Goods and Responsibilities: How Far Should We Go?\n Episode 27 - International Trade: For Whose Benefit?\nGuests: Robert Crandell, economist, Brookings Institution; Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan; Sen. William Brock, R-Tennessee; Special Trade Representative, Kay Jennings, Toyota dealer; Anthony Solomon, Deputy Treasury Secretary, Carter administration; Patricia Fernandez Kelly; Steve Knaebel, President, Cummins Engine-Mexico\n Episode 28 - Exchange Rates: What in the World Is a Dollar Worth?\nGuests: Dr. Edward Bernstein, former Principal Economist, U.S. Treasury Department; Dr. Joan Spero, Senior Vice-President, Corporate Affairs, American Express; Dr. Marina von Neumann Whitman, former economic advisor to President Richard M. Nixon; Martin Feldstein; George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Michael Mussa\n\nReferences\n https://web.archive.org/web/20070929180413/http://www.efcvideo.com/EconomicsUSA/\n http://www.learner.org/resources/series79.html\n\n1986 American television series debuts\nPBS original programming\nTelevision series by the Annenberg Foundation"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay.",
"How does Frasier react to the engagement?",
"dismay.",
"How does the episode end?",
"Lilith last appears in \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | What happens on the date? | 8 | What happens on Lilith's and Frasier's blind date in the Frasier episode "Guns 'N Neuroses"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | true | [
"\"What Happens Tomorrow\" is a song by British pop rock band Duran Duran from their 11th studio album, Astronaut (2004). It was released on 18 January 2005 as the second single from that album. The song debuted at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart on 6 February 2005 and was the second single from the album to peak at number two in Italy.\n\nAbout the song\nThe track was originally debuted on an American Internet radio station in 2003 while the band were hunting around for a record deal. During the outro, bassist John Taylor announced that it would be a single later on in the year.\n\nThe version of \"What Happens Tomorrow\" played on the radio was an early demo featuring an extended bridge, which would be removed by the time the track was released on Astronaut; parts of the track were re-worked to become the b-side \"Silent Icy River\".\n\nMusic video\nThe video, which showed the band as constellations, was directed by the duo of Smith n' Borin (Frank Buff Borin and Ryan Smith). It was nominated on the Visual Effects Society Awards 2005 for \"Outstanding Visual Effects in a Music Video\" for media artists Jerry Steele, Jo Steele, Brian Adler and Monique Eissing.\n\nPlayboy Playmate Nicole Marie Lenz and Steve Talley (American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile) appear in the video.\n\nB-sides, bonus tracks and remixes\nB-sides on various releases included \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\", \"Silent Icy River\", and \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\".\n\nTrack listings\nCD: Epic / 6756501 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Edit)\" – 3:36\n\nThe full-length mix was released on a promotional 12 inch during the \"Sunrise\" campaign.\n\nCD Epic / 6756502 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (video)\" – 4:04\n\nCD Epic / 6756532 (International)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\" – 6:46\n\nDigital Downloads Only\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Mix)\" – 8:56\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Dub)\" – 8:49\n\nCD: Epic / SAMPCS145991 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:05\n\nPersonnel\n Simon Le Bon – vocals \n Nick Rhodes – keyboards\n John Taylor – bass guitar\n Roger Taylor – drums\n Andy Taylor – guitar\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nCovers, samples, and media references\nIn 2005, \"What Happens Tomorrow\" was used in a promotional spot for the U.S. digital cable network Fox Soccer Channel; Simon Le Bon and John Taylor had also appeared in a separate spot for the network.\n\nThe song was also used in a promotional spot for Flight 29 Down on Canada's Family Channel.\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nDuran Duran songs\nSongs written by Simon Le Bon\nSongs written by Warren Cuccurullo\nSongs written by Nick Rhodes",
"What Really Happens in Bali is a documentary television series that airs on the Seven Network on Monday nights at 9:00pm.\n\nShow details\nThe show premiered on Tuesday, 27 May at 8:45pm, however after three episodes, the show was moved to Mondays at 9:00pm, replacing Revenge, its third series having wrapped up broadcasting on Seven the previous Monday.\n\nA spin-off of the series, What Really Happens in Thailand, filmed in Thailand premiered in September 2015.\n\nA second spin-off premiered in 2016, titled What Really Happens on the Gold Coast.\n\nSynopsis\nThe documentary television series gives viewers unprecedented access into Bali, including various holiday spots and the infamous Kerobokan Prison, where the Bali Nine are currently incarcerated.\n\nReferences\n\nSeven Network original programming\n2010s Australian documentary television series\n2014 Australian television series debuts"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay.",
"How does Frasier react to the engagement?",
"dismay.",
"How does the episode end?",
"Lilith last appears in \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date.",
"What happens on the date?",
"Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple"
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | What is the argument about? | 9 | What is the young married couple's argument about in the Frasier episode "Guns 'N Neuroses"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong is a 1977 work of ethics by J. L. Mackie known for its espousal of moral skepticism and the argument from queerness.\n\nContents\nThe first chapter, \"The Subjectivity of Values,\" opens with Mackie's rejection of moral universalism: \"There are no objective values.\" This chapter is well known for advancing two arguments against moral universalism: the argument from disagreement and the argument from queerness. The chapter is excerpted in the fourth (2007) edition of Stuart and James Rachels's The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy.\n\nArgument from disagreement\nThe argument from disagreement, also known as the argument from relativity, first observes that there is a lot of intractable moral disagreement: people disagree about what is right and what is wrong. Mackie argues that the best explanation of this is that right and wrong are invented, not objective truths.\n\nArgument from queerness\n\nThe argument from queerness has two forms: metaphysical and epistemological. With regards to the metaphysical version, if moral properties or entities were to exist, they would be very unusual (\"queer\") things. Epistemologically, it is unclear how we could come to know about such entities. The metaphysical and epistemological arguments are tied together, \"since we are forced to posit weird epistemological equipment only if it has already been established that the properties in question are weird.\"\n\nReferences\n\nLiterature\n McDowell, John: \"Aesthetic Value, Objectivity and the Fabric of the World,\" in: Mind, Value and Reality (1998). , Harvard University Press.\n\nExternal links\nDirectory page at Encyclopedia Britannica\n\n1977 non-fiction books\nEthics books\nEnglish-language books\nPenguin Books",
"Hawkes' Ladder of Inference is an archaeological argument outlined by Christopher Hawkes in a 1954 paper that describes increasing difficulty of making inferences about ancient society with artifacts. Hawkes argued that it was easiest to infer how artifacts were made and hardest to describe the religion of a society.\n\nArgument \nWhat became the paper outlining Hawkes' Ladder was first presented as a lecture by Hawkes in November 1953 at a dinner hosted by the WennerGrun Foundation at Harvard University. The paper itself was 14 pages with about half a page outlining his fundamental argument.\n\nHawkes' proposed in his argument a ladder that has four 'rungs' and describes the increasing difficulty of making assumptions about ancient societies with archaeological data. The bottom 'rung' is making inferences about how artifacts were made and what technology they were made with, the second the economic systems built on those tools, and third the society that emerged. At the top of his ladder was the society's religion, which he argued to be \"the hardest of all\" to make inferences about.\n\nReception \nIn 1998 Christopher Evans wrote in Antiquity that the 'Ladder' paper is \"[a] key document in the history of 20th-century archaeology, citation to it is almost mandatory in any overview of the development of archaeological thought and it often serves as a 'windmill' to be tilted at when marshalling theoretical argument.\"\n\nReferences \n\nArchaeological theory"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay.",
"How does Frasier react to the engagement?",
"dismay.",
"How does the episode end?",
"Lilith last appears in \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date.",
"What happens on the date?",
"Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple",
"What is the argument about?",
"Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | Do Frasier and Lilith see each other again? | 10 | Do Frasier and Lilith see each other again after the Frasier episode "Guns 'N Neuroses"? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"Lilith Sternin (formerly Sternin-Crane) is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. The character first appears as a date for Frasier Crane, though mutual hostility and discomfort causes the evening to end badly. Several months later, Lilith meets Frasier again and, with some help from Frasier's ex-fiancée, Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), they start a romantic relationship, eventually living together, marrying, and having a son, Frederick.\n\nIn the final season of Cheers, Lilith has an affair with another man and leaves Frasier. The affair later unravels and Lilith returns, seeking reconciliation with Frasier. Although Cheers ended ambiguously with regard to Frasier and Lilith's marriage, at the beginning of the spin-off series Frasier, their divorce had been finalized, with Lilith gaining custody of Frederick and remaining in Boston while Frasier has moved back to his hometown of Seattle. Lilith occasionally appears in Frasier, sometimes with Frederick.\n\nRole in Cheers\nLilith debuts in the Cheers episode, \"Second Time Around\" (1986), as Frasier Crane's (Kelsey Grammer) date. In the episode, their first date does not go well. Lilith walks out of the date because she disdains the bar as Frasier's location for their date and Frasier's activities at the bar. In \"Abnormal Psychology\" (1986), they feel mutual attraction again when he becomes accustomed to her makeover done by Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). At first reluctant to start over again, they then decide to go for another date. For years they live together since, as first shown in \"Dinner at Eight-ish\" (1987). \"Our Hourly Bread\" (1988) reveals that they wed one month before the episode. (In \"Smotherly Love\" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage.) In \"The Stork Brings a Crane\" (1989), Lilith gives birth to Frederick during the taxi ride home after false labor in the hospital.\n\nThe tenth-season Cheers episode \"I'm Okay, You're Defective\" (1991) features two plots: one subplot about Lilith pressuring Frasier to finalize his will and one main plot about Sam Malone's (Ted Danson) concern that his sperm count may be low. The episode's epilogue is described as \"Many years later\" with an elderly Lilith and adult Frederick (Rob Neukirch) sitting for the reading of Frasier's will. The lawyer opens the sealed envelope and is surprised to find Sam's sperm count report, which turns out stable. In response to the mix-up, Lilith bitterly remarks, \"That damn bar.\"\n\nIn the eleventh and final season (1992–93), in \"Teaching with the Enemy\" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man – Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt). In \"The Girl in the Plastic Bubble\" (1992), Lilith leaves Frasier, with him contemplating suicide until she promises to him that the marriage can be saved, to live with Pascal in Pascal's experimental underground eco-pod. In \"Is There a Doctor in the Howe?\" (1993), a depressed Frasier almost has sex with Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley) in their bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns. In the following episode, \"The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover\" (1993), Lilith storms out of the room to go to Cheers, demanding the others tell her how long Frasier and Rebecca have been having an affair. The other characters have no idea as the affair has barely started that very evening. Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster — Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic, among other mental problems — and she abandons the project to return to Boston. Frasier and Rebecca, and eventually Pascal, converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, suggesting a reconciliation can occur.\n\nRole in Frasier\nIn the spin-off Frasier, Lilith and Frasier have divorced, and Frederick continually lives with Lilith in Boston after Frasier's move to Seattle. In the opening scene of the 1993 pilot episode of Frasier (\"The Good Son\"), Frasier is hosting his call-in radio show and relates the following:\n\nSix months ago, I was living in Boston. My wife had left me, which was very painful. Then she came back to me, which was excruciating. ...So I ended the marriage once and for all, packed up my things, and moved back here to my home town of Seattle.\n\nActress Bebe Neuwirth reprises the role of Lilith in several episodes of Frasier. In her debut Frasier episode, \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith calls Frasier during his radio show, which surprises him, and mocks Frasier's psychiatric advice to his callers, especially one who overeats and whom Lilith attempts to help. Later at his apartment, Lilith reminds him about their times together during marriage. They make love at one point, but end up regretting it, strongly indicating no chance of a lasting reconciliation. Throughout the series, Lilith reappears on occasion, often rekindling hers and Frasier's lingering emotional bond, sometimes over concern about the future of Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also makes recurring appearances.\n\nA running gag throughout Frasier is that Frasier's father and brother, Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce), are never pleased to see Lilith. Martin finds her \"weird\" and usually shouts out in shock when he unexpectedly sees her in his and Frasier's apartment. Niles resents her for mocking the vows at his wedding but forgives her when she apologizes. Lilith's presence frightens Martin's dog Eddie, terrifying the normally defiant dog into obedience. Martin's live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), who fancies herself as having minor psychic abilities, routinely suffers debilitating headaches when Lilith is in town, citing an evil spiritual presence.\n\nLilith marries her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), an MIT seismologist who appears in only one episode \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994). A later episode, \"Room Service\" (1998), reveals that Lilith is recently divorced from Brian after he came out of the closet.\n\nHer final Frasier episode is \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), where Lilith's colleague Nancy (Christine Dunford), sets Frasier up on a blind date with Lilith, having no idea of their mutual history. However, the two meet up for a drink while Lilith is in Seattle and, when it overruns, they both end up cancelling on the blind date (never learning they had been set up with each other). When the two are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple in the next room, Frasier and Lilith successfully resolve the couple's dispute, then spend the night together watching television and finally falling asleep together on the couch. The next morning, they part ways as loving friends without restarting their romance.\n\nCreation and development\n\nA stereotypical \"intelligent ice queen\" Lilith Sternin was supposed to appear in one episode of the fourth season of Cheers, \"Second Time Around\" (1986). However, she was brought back in the fifth season and became a recurring character thereafter. Over the years, like Diane Chambers, an educated Lilith is often mocked yet \"manages to put people in their place.\"\n\nCheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found the chemistry of Frasier and Lilith \"special\" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy mixed with \"Prozac\" and to comfortably write stories about. Nevertheless, Neuwirth did not want to appear as a regular player, and left the role of Lilith on Cheers. Neuwirth's career has since been focused on stage work. However, she made several guest appearances as Lilith in the spin-off Frasier.\n\nThe Frasier episode \"Wheels of Fortune\" (2002) reveals that Lilith has a half-brother, Blaine (Michael Keaton), whom Frasier despises due to Blaine's relentless swindling.\n\nReception \nThis role earned Neuwirth two Emmy Awards as an Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1990 and 1991.\n\nAccording to an April 1–4, 1993, telephone survey of 1,011 people by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center), before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) was voted a favorite character by 26 percent, and Frasier Crane and Lilith Sternin were voted favorites by 1 percent each. In response to a question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted 2 percent to have his own show.\n\nBill Simmons, who at the time worked for ESPN, deemed Lilith Sternin one of his least favorite Cheers characters. Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith \"repressed\" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the \"best sitcom divorced couples\" of all-time.\n\nSteven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier \"fun\" to watch, especially when, in \"Severe Crane Damage\" (1990), she used comparisons between \"the duller good boy\" Frasier and \"the interesting bad boy\" Sam Malone as \"psychiatric examples of the good boy–bad boy syndrome\". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously \"[perfect mismatch]\". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as \"repressed individuals\" and \"separate couple on TV\" with \"acidic and hilarious\" chemistry together.\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nGeneral bibliography \n Bjorklund, Dennis A. Cheers TV Show: A Comprehensive Reference. Praetorian Publishing, 1993. Google Books. Web. 8 April 2012. Another edition\n Gates, Anita. \"TELEVISION; Yes, America Has a Class System. See 'Frasier'. The New York Times, 19 Apr. 1998. Web. 9 Feb. 2012.\n\nAll articles that may contain original research\nTelevision characters introduced in 1986\nCheers characters\nFrasier characters\nFictional female doctors\nFictional American Jews\nAmerican female characters in television\nCrossover characters in television\nFictional American psychiatrists",
"Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, \"Rebound (Part 1)\" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.\n\nGrammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).\n\nIn February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.\n\nCreation and casting\n\nThe character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) \"romantic and intellectual ideal\" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, \"a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship,\" said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as \"the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does.\"\n\nJohn Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking \"Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?\", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.\n\nRole in Cheers\nFrasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode \"Rebound\" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in \"Rescue Me\" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in \"Birth, Death, Love, and Rice\" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In \"The Triangle\" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.\n\nThe character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical \"intelligent, ice queen\" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in \"Second Time Around\" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In \"Abnormal Psychology\" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before \"Our Hourly Bread\" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in \"The Stork Brings a Crane\" (1989). (In \"Smotherly Love\" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).\n\nIn \"One Hugs, the Other Doesn't\" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.\n\nIn \"Teaching with the Enemy\" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In \"Is There a Doctor in the Howe?\" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode \"The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover\" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.\n\nRole in Frasier\n\nSpin-off development\nWhen Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, \"a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast\". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on \"his work at a radio station\", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes \"haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight.\"\n\nMoving to Seattle\nAfter Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot \"The Good Son\", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.\n\nFrasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in \"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in \"To All the Girls I've Loved Before\" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in \"Diane Meets Mom\" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in \"Mamma Mia\" (1999) and \"Don Juan in Hell: Part 2\" (2001), is dead off-screen.\n\nFrasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be \"a bit psychic\". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.\n\nLife with Martin and Niles\nDuring the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no \"sophisticated, educated\" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.\n\nIn \"Dinner at Eight\" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not \"snobs\" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode \"I Kid You Not\" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.\n\nIn \"Chess Pains\" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier \"won, fair and square\" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode \"Spellbound\" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.\n\nIn an episode of the seventh season \"A Tsar Is Born\" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from \"thieves and whores\". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.\n\nReunion with Lilith and Frederick\nActress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith \"special\" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In \"A Lilith Thanksgiving\" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In \"The Unnatural\" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.\n\nIn \"Room Service\" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.\n\nReunions with Cheers characters\nWith the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In \"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In \"The Show Where Diane Comes Back\" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.\n\nIn \"The Show Where Woody Shows Up\" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In \"Cheerful Goodbyes\" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.\n\nFinal years: 2003–04\nIn \"Caught in the Act\" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode \"One Hugs, the Other Doesn't\" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in \"Don Juan in Hell, Part 2\" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, \"Goodnight, Seattle\", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.\n\nOther appearances \nKelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.\n\n Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)\n Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, \"Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration\" (1990)\n The Earth Day Special (1990)\n Wings Season 3, Episode 16, \"Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes\" (1992)\n The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, \"More Changes\" (1995)\n Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)\n\nAn animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode \"Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)\", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.\n\nCharacterization and analysis \nFrasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, \"flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable.\" Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also \"a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies.\" According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is \"very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;\" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.\n\nReception\n\nPopularity \nAccording to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.\n\nCritical reaction \nAt the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the \"Sam and Diane\" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting (\"his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar\") responsible for turning Cheers into \"as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat.\"\nLater, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with \"a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting\", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In \"The Show Where Sam Shows Up\" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered \"high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated\" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of \"anti-intellectual snobbery\", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of \"Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life\" and called him \"hilarious\" in the fictional world and \"unbearable\" in the real world.\n\nRobert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of \"Fred Astaire and William Powell\" instead of recent \"beer-belching\" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and \"tiring\". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's \"diction\" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of \"daffiness\" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an \"insufferable twerp\". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode \"Fathers and Son\" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier \"snooty and pretentious\", even if he may be \"smart\" on television and a \"rare\" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them \"predictable\". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as \"a windbag with a sense of humor\" and \"a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses.\" Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers \"from a light romantic into farce\" by physical comedy.\n\nReviewers on Frasier and Lilith\nMartha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith \"repressed\" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the \"best sitcom divorced couples\" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier \"fun\" to watch, especially when, in \"Severe Crane Damage\" (1990), she used comparisons between \"the duller good boy\" Frasier and \"the interesting bad boy\" Sam Malone as \"psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome\". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously \"perfect mismatch\". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as \"repressed individuals\" and \"separate couple on TV\" with \"acidic and hilarious\" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.\n\n Accolades \nFor his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode \"Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes\", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.\n\nFor the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n Another edition\n\nExternal links\n Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle\n\nCheers characters\nFrasier characters\nFictional radio personalities\nFictional Harvard University people\nFictional University of Oxford people\nTelevision characters introduced in 1984\nFictional characters from Seattle\nFictional attempted suicides\nCrossover characters in television\nFictional American psychiatrists\nAmerican male characters in television"
]
|
[
"Frasier Crane",
"Reunion with Lilith and Frederick",
"When did he reunite with Lilith and Frederick?",
"In \"The Show Where Lilith Comes Back\" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show.",
"What does she say on the radio show?",
"They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again.",
"Is he reunited with Frederick?",
"They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off.",
"Does Frasier have a good relationship with Frederick?",
"Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick.",
"What else happens in the reunion episode?",
"In \"Adventures in Paradise, Part Two\" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay.",
"How does Frasier react to the engagement?",
"dismay.",
"How does the episode end?",
"Lilith last appears in \"Guns 'N Neuroses\" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date.",
"What happens on the date?",
"Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple",
"What is the argument about?",
"Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy.",
"Do Frasier and Lilith see each other again?",
"The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together."
]
| C_6c388d48082e4ea09fd9a8f68cf0676b_0 | Is this the last episode she appears in? | 11 | Is "Guns 'N Neuroses" the last Frasier episode Lilith appears in? | Frasier Crane | During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly argue over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is sophisticated, intellectual, and erudite, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin. In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious, snobby Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode, "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to the upper class, expensive restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier. In "Chess Pains", Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider hideous, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are crushed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock. Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do theatre (mostly Broadway); she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other raise their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiance Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's dismay. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math. Much of the intellectual jousting with Lilith that sits alongside the narrative of post-divorce navigation hinges on the fact that in psychological terms Lilith is a behaviorist whereas Frasier is a psychoanalyst. In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without intimacy. The next morning, they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. CANNOTANSWER | they part ways at their final onscreen moment together. | Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane (born ) is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. The character debuted in the Cheers third-season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest, part of the Sam and Diane story arc. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier marries Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) and has a son, Frederick. After Cheers ended, the character moved to a spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly-created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles.
Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings. For his portrayal in Cheers, Grammer was nominated twice as the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series but did not win that category. For portraying the character in Frasier, Kelsey Grammer won four Emmy Awards out of eleven nominations as the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Awards out of eight nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy).
In February 2021, CBS announced that Grammer would reprise the character in a new reboot of the series set to air on the new streaming service, Paramount+.
Creation and casting
The character Frasier Crane was created in the third season of Cheers (1984–1985) by series creators Glen and Les Charles as Diane Chambers's (Shelley Long) "romantic and intellectual ideal" following her breakup with Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Not only Sam Malone's rival and opposite, Frasier Crane was also part of the love triangle, "a different form of the Sam-Diane relationship," said Glen Charles. The show's writers initially conceived the character as "the role Ralph Bellamy used to play in Cary Grant movies — the guy the lady falls in love with, but is not real. You just know he doesn't have the sexual dynamism Grant does."
John Lithgow was originally chosen by Cheers producers for the role, but turned it down. Grammer believed that he had failed the audition because no one laughed, but was chosen because of the quality of his performance with Danson. Frasier was supposed to only appear on a few episodes before Diane left him, but Grammer's performance was praised by series executives, leading to an extended role in the series. His character was not universally popular, however, for coming between Sam and Diane; a fan approached Grammer asking "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier?", and the show received fan mail denouncing Grammer.
Role in Cheers
Frasier Crane, an alumnus of Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, debuted in the two-part episode "Rebound" (1984), the premiere of Cheers season three (1984–85), as a psychiatrist to help bartender Sam Malone recover from a brief return to alcoholism and also cope with his breakup from Diane Chambers. Also Diane's fiancé throughout the third season, he and Diane are supposed to wed in Italy in "Rescue Me" (1985), the finale of season three. However, in "Birth, Death, Love, and Rice" (1985), the premiere of season four (1985–86), Frasier enters the bar and tells Sam that he was jilted by Diane at the altar in Europe. A despondent Frasier, who gave up his practice to go to Europe, loses his job lecturing at a university in Europe. Later in season four, he begins to regularly attend Cheers for drinks and finds himself depending more and more on alcohol. In "The Triangle" (1986), Sam feigns symptoms of depression, planned by Diane, to help Frasier recover from alcoholism and regain his own self-confidence. This leads Frasier to conclude that Sam's symptoms indicate his love for Diane. However, upon arrival Frasier sees Sam and Diane arguing in the bar office, Sam admits the whole plan. Furious, Frasier declares himself to be sober, refuses to be a part of their relationship, and vows to practice psychiatry again.
The character finally becomes a permanent fixture among the other bar patrons by the end of season three, and adds to his comedic repertoire an occasional penchant for commenting on the personality flaws of the other Cheers regulars, while still managing to remain a likable addition to the gang. As his role is expanded, Frasier becomes romantically involved with a stereotypical "intelligent, ice queen" Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth). Their first date in "Second Time Around" (1986) does not go well; they exchange insults with each other until she leaves the bar, disappointing him. In "Abnormal Psychology" (1986), Frasier and Lilith feel mutual attraction after Diane gives Lilith a makeover. At first reluctant to start anew, they then decide to go on another date. They live together for a year before being married one month before "Our Hourly Bread" (1988) as revealed in the episode, and give birth to their son Frederick in "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989). (In "Smotherly Love" (1992), they re-enact their wedding to please Lilith's mother Betty (Marilyn Cooper), who was irritated that she had not been present for their marriage).
In "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992), Frasier is revealed to have been previously married to Nanette Guzman (Emma Thompson), now known as the popular children's entertainer Nanny G. When Nanette sings a song implying her possible feelings for Frasier (despite being fully aware he's remarried), Lilith attacks her during Frederick's second birthday party.
In "Teaching with the Enemy" (1992), Lilith admits her affair with another man Dr. Louis Pascal (Peter Vogt), dooming their marriage. In "Is There a Doctor in the Howe?" (1993), a distraught Frasier is going to sleep with Rebecca Howe in his bed until Lilith unexpectedly returns and then—in the following episode "The Bar Manager, The Shrink, His Wife and Her Lover" (1993)—storms out the room and then heads to Cheers. There, Lilith reveals that the eco-pod experiment with Pascal was a disaster—Pascal turned out to be claustrophobic among other mental problems—and she abandoned the project to return to Boston. Frasier, Rebecca, and eventually Pascal converge on Cheers in pursuit of Lilith. Pascal, armed with a pistol, demands Lilith return to him, threatening to shoot Frasier and the others. Lilith demands that he shoot her first, which causes him to back down and surrender to police. Although Frasier initially refuses to take Lilith back after all this, her pathetic sobbing wins him over, and he hesitantly reconciles with her.
Role in Frasier
Spin-off development
When Cheers ended in 1993, at first the creators did not plan to spin off the character from the predecessor because they were concerned that a spinoff might fail. Instead, they wanted to cast Kelsey Grammer as a paraplegic millionaire resembling Malcolm Forbes, "a magazine mogul [and] a motorcycle enthusiast". The idea was deemed unsuitable and scrapped. Then the show's creators decided to move Frasier Crane out of Boston to avoid any resemblance to Cheers. The spinoff idea would have focused on "his work at a radio station", but they found it resembling an older sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Therefore, they decided to add in his private life, such as his father Martin and brother Niles. In his titular spin-off, Frasier becomes "haughty, disdainful, and exceedingly uptight."
Moving to Seattle
After Cheers, Frasier and Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) divorce offscreen, and Lilith is awarded custody of their son Frederick, with Frasier granted visiting rights. In the pilot "The Good Son", Frasier explains that he left Boston because he felt that his life and career had grown stagnant (and he had been publicly humiliated after climbing onto a ledge and threatening to commit suicide before being talked down). Therefore, he returned to his original hometown of Seattle, where his father Martin (John Mahoney) and brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) live, to have a fresh start.
Frasier works for the radio station, KACL, as the host of his psychotherapeutic radio show, The Dr. Frasier Crane Show, produced by his producer and friend, Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin), who has many ex-boyfriends. Later, his father Martin, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who was shot in the line of duty, ends up moving in with him. Frasier is worried about his father in his current state as he can barely walk, and requires a cane to move. In Cheers, Frasier says that his father is dead, and that he was a scientist. He also says that he is an only child. This inconsistency is later explained in "The Show Where Sam Shows Up": At Frasier's apartment, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) tells Martin and Niles what Frasier had said about them, and Frasier explains that he was trying to distance himself from his family at the time. In Cheers, Frasier tells bar patrons that he is an orphan. He confirms in "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (1988) that his mother Hester, portrayed by Nancy Marchand in "Diane Meets Mom" (1984) and then by Rita Wilson in flashbacks in "Mamma Mia" (1999) and "Don Juan in Hell: Part 2" (2001), is dead off-screen.
Frasier hires a live-in physical therapist, Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), to care for Martin. Daphne is an eccentric, working class Englishwoman who professes to be "a bit psychic". Moreover, Martin brings his beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Eddie, whom Frasier is uncomfortable around. After some initial hostility, Frasier grows very close to his new family.
Life with Martin and Niles
During the course of the spin-off's run, especially in scenes at Frasier's apartment, Frasier and Martin regularly fight over the living arrangements and each other's personalities: Frasier is intellectual, elitist, and mild-mannered, while Martin is a rugged man of simple tastes who speaks (according to Frasier) in words that no "sophisticated, educated" person could understand. While Frasier has many common interests with Niles and shares adventures (or misadventures) with him, he has little in common with his father, Martin.
In "Dinner at Eight" (1993), Martin takes Frasier and Niles to a themed steakhouse, where health-conscious Frasier and Niles criticize the food, the restaurant's customs, and the clientele. Martin becomes frustrated and angry before leaving, remarking upon departing that their mother, Hester, would be disappointed with their behavior. Frasier and Niles try to prove that they are not "snobs" by finishing their meal, although it takes them until after closing time. Ironically, in the Cheers season seven episode "I Kid You Not" (1988), Frasier invites Carla and her son Ludlow to a fine dining restaurant, but Carla and Ludlow criticize and mock it, enraging Frasier.
In "Chess Pains" (1996), Frasier teaches Martin how to play chess, but is horrified when Martin becomes a better player than him, due to Martin's seasoned insight as a police detective. Frasier becomes obsessed with winning against his father until Frasier wins one match and Martin does not want to play with Frasier anymore. One late night, Frasier wakes Martin up and asks him whether he lost the chess match on purpose. Martin responds that Frasier "won, fair and square" and nothing more. In the Cheers season five episode "Spellbound" (1987), dimwitted Woody Boyd consistently beats Frasier in chess, frustrating Frasier.
In an episode of the seventh season "A Tsar Is Born" (1999), Martin takes an old family clock, which Frasier and Niles consider ugly, to exhibit on the television show Antiques Roadshow. As the boys soon discover, the clock is related to their ancestors and royalty, and may be worth a fortune, and heightens their expectations of being descended from royalty. Unfortunately, when they try to sell the clock later, the brothers learn from an antique specialist that it was stolen from the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. Moreover, their great-great-grandmother was discovered to have been the clock thief and the daughter's scullery maid, and is discovered to have later been a prostitute in New York City. Therefore, the brothers are left without a fortune, a clock, and their royal dreams are destroyed, as Frasier puts it, they are descended from "thieves and whores". Much to their anger, Martin buys a Winnebago RV with money Frasier claimed were the proceeds from selling the clock.
Reunion with Lilith and Frederick
Actress Bebe Neuwirth left Cheers for fear of becoming typecast and to do Broadway; she did not expect to appear recurrently in Frasier. Cheers and Frasier writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs found chemistry of Frasier and Lilith "special" enough to compare them with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on Prozac. In "The Show Where Lilith Comes Back" (1994), Lilith surprises Frasier by dialing to the radio show. They later make love in a hotel room, but end up regretting it, prompting them to part ways again. They decide to remain friends and help each other co-parent their son Frederick (Trevor Einhorn), who also appears occasionally in this spin-off. In "Adventures in Paradise, Part Two" (1994), Lilith gets engaged to her fiancé Brian (James Morrison), much to Frasier's chagrin. In "A Lilith Thanksgiving" (1996), Frasier and Lilith have Frederick admitted into a private school after they annoy the administrator (Paxton Whitehead) several times on Thanksgiving. In "The Unnatural" (1997), Frasier is proven as unathletic and bad at softball, which he reluctantly admits to Frederick. Then Frasier tells him that, when Frasier was a third-grade elementary student, Martin was bad at math.
In "Room Service" (1998), Lilith is recently divorced from her husband Brian for his gay affair. Frasier attempts to renew the relationship, but changes his mind when he finds out, to his horror, that Lilith and Niles had a drunken one-night stand. Lilith last appears in "Guns 'N Neuroses" (2003), in which she and Frasier are accidentally set up to go on a blind date. Lilith and Frasier are close to restarting a relationship in the hotel room, but they are interrupted by a loud argument between a young married couple next door. Frasier and Lilith are able to resolve the couple's dispute, spend the night together watching television, and finally fall asleep on the couch without having had sex. The next morning, they part ways with a tender final onscreen moment together.
Reunions with Cheers characters
With the exception of Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), all the surviving main cast members of Cheers appear in the show at various points. In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" (1995), Sam Malone reunites with Frasier in Seattle. Later, Frasier is discovered to have slept with Sam's fiancée Sheila (Téa Leoni), but Sam has not discovered the affair, much to Frasier's relief. Nevertheless, Sam finds out her dalliances with Paul Krapence (Paul Willson) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger), which ends the romantic relationship. In "The Show Where Diane Comes Back" (1996), Frasier is reunited with Diane Chambers and learns that her recent relationship failed and that a foundation refused to fund her upcoming play, prompting him to support it. The play turns out to be based on their relationship in Boston, including her leaving him at the altar. Frasier angrily confronts her about it, but they end up reconciling.
In "The Show Where Woody Shows Up" (1999), Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), still married to Kelly with his son and daughter, accidentally reunites with Frasier after landing in the wrong destination, Seattle. However, they realize that they are no longer friends, as their lives are too different. Nevertheless, they admit that they had good times together in Boston, and they will always think about each other. In "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), Frasier arrives to Boston for a psychiatric conference. At the airport, Frasier unexpectedly bumps into Cliff Clavin and is invited to Cliff's retirement party the following evening, where he is reunited with Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman) and then briefly Norm Peterson (George Wendt). Later, Cliff confides in Frasier that he fears that his friends will not miss him. Frasier tells everyone to say a nice farewell to Cliff; even Carla, who hates him. Moved, Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to Carla's annoyance.
Final years: 2003–04
In "Caught in the Act" (2004), Frasier's ex-wife Nanette Guzman (Laurie Metcalf), tries to rekindle their relationship, but Frasier refuses. (The character was previously portrayed by Emma Thompson in Cheers episode "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't" (1992) and by Dina Spybey in "Don Juan in Hell, Part 2" (2001) as part of Frasier's imaginary dream.) Later, he falls in love with Charlotte Connor (Laura Linney), but the romance turns out to be short-lived when she moves to Chicago. In the 2004 two-part series finale, "Goodnight, Seattle", Frasier is offered a job as the host of his own television talk show, located in San Francisco and has decided to accept the job. However, in the final scene of the show, it is revealed that Frasier has boarded a plane to Chicago, implying he will be with Charlotte.
Other appearances
Kelsey Grammer has made several appearances as Dr. Frasier Crane outside of Cheers and Frasier.
Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Season 34, Episode 15, "Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration" (1990)
The Earth Day Special (1990)
Wings Season 3, Episode 16, "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes" (1992)
The John Larroquette Show Season 3, Episode 1, "More Changes" (1995)
Dr Pepper TV Commercial (2008)
An animated version of the character appears in The Simpsons episode "Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)", although Grammer, who voices Sideshow Bob on the show, does not voice the character of Frasier.
Characterization and analysis
Frasier Crane is a licensed psychiatrist who is, as Kelsey Grammer described, "flawed, silly, pompous, and full of himself, [yet] kind [and] vulnerable." Judy Berman from Flavor Wire describes him as also "a child prodigy, theater geek, and frequent target for bullies." According to Cheers and Frasier writer Peter Casey, Frasier is "very complicated, very intelligent, but also very insecure;" he may have all solutions to problems as psychiatrist but is clueless about himself.
Reception
Popularity
According to a 1993 telephone survey before the Frasier premiere and the Cheers finale, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) scored 26 percent as a favorite character, and Frasier Crane scored 1 percent. In response to the question of spinning off a character, 15 percent voted Sam, 12 percent voted Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), 10 percent voted Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and 29 percent voted no spin-offs. Frasier Crane, whose own spin-off Frasier debuted in September 1993, was voted by 2 percent to have his own show.
Critical reaction
At the time Cheers originally aired, Rick Sherwood from Los Angeles disdained Frasier Crane and his existence as part of the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Sherwood found Frasier's frequent appearances in the bar setting ("his [former] girlfriend's former lover's bar") responsible for turning Cheers into "as believable as [conservative] Archie Bunker [from All in the Family] voting for a liberal Democrat."
Later, while the character became more prominent in the series, inspiring a spin-off Frasier, in a 1999 book Writing and Responsibility, Beverly West and Jason Bergund noted that Frasier's father Martin was supposed to be dead in Cheers but turns out still alive in Frasier, calling it inconsistent with "a bout of amnesia[,] poor scriptwriting", or a desperation to elicit more laughter. (In "The Show Where Sam Shows Up" [1995], Frasier addresses the inconsistency by explaining that he told his friends Martin was dead after an argument with him.) In another book TV Therapy, Frasier Crane in Cheers is considered "high-strung [and] pseudo-sophisticated" and an attraction to 1980s demographics of "anti-intellectual snobbery", but Frasier in Frasier is considered a good, positive role model for intellectuality and sophistication. In 2004, he was ranked by Bravo No. 26 of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. In 2009, the National Lampoon website ranked him No. 20 of "Top 20 Sitcom Characters You'd Kill in Real Life" and called him "hilarious" in the fictional world and "unbearable" in the real world.
Robert Bianco from USA Today considered Frasier Crane masculine in the days of "Fred Astaire and William Powell" instead of recent "beer-belching" days of the reality show, Survivor. Bianco found series of Frasier's love life repetitive and "tiring". Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly considered Frasier Crane's "diction" an inspiration of Fringe'''s Walter Bishop (John Noble), who has an addition of "daffiness" of roles portrayed by actor Christopher Lloyd. Joe Sixpack, a pseudonymous name for writer Don Russell, called Frasier an "insufferable twerp". An internet user from Ken Levine's blog considered Frasier a successor to more prestigious, experienced Bostonian medical doctor and surgeon Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) from the television series M*A*S*H. However, Levine did not acknowledge it when Frasier was the new character in Cheers in 1984. (Coincidentally, in the Frasier episode "Fathers and Son" (2003), actor Stiers, portrayer of Winchester, appears as Hester Crane's former lab assistant Leland Barton, who is suspected as Frasier and Niles' biological father.)Television Without Pity called Frasier "snooty and pretentious", even if he may be "smart" on television and a "rare" species of all characters. Steve Silverman from Screen Junkies praised Kelsey Grammer's performance as Frasier Crane but found them "predictable". Silverman thought that Grammer did not deserve an Emmy, especially in 1998. In note, Silverman deemed the character Frasier as "a windbag with a sense of humor" and "a whining schoolboy with a series of lame excuses." Lance Mannion from his Typepad blog depicted Grammer as partially responsible for turning Cheers "from a light romantic into farce" by physical comedy.
Reviewers on Frasier and Lilith
Martha Nolan from The New York Times called Frasier and Lilith "repressed" when married together in Cheers. Josh Bell from About.com called Frasier and his ex-wife Lilith Sternin one of the "best sitcom divorced couples" of all-time. Steven H. Scheuer from Sarasota Herald-Tribune considered Lilith's significance to and marriage with Frasier "fun" to watch, especially when, in "Severe Crane Damage" (1990), she used comparisons between "the duller good boy" Frasier and "the interesting bad boy" Sam Malone as "psychiatric examples of the good boy-bad boy syndrome". Faye Zuckerman and John Martin from The New York Times called their marriage in Cheers a hilariously "perfect mismatch". Television critic Kevin McDonough from New York praised Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth's performances as "repressed individuals" and "separate couple on TV" with "acidic and hilarious" chemistry together. Lance Mannion referred to Frasier and Lilith as separate halves of Diane Chambers.
Accolades
For his performance as Frasier Crane in Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was Emmy Award-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1988 and 1990. For the same role in Wings episode "Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes", he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series at the 1992 Emmy Awards.
For the same role in Cheers spin-off Frasier, Grammer was consecutively nominated as an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series during the show's whole run except in 2003. He won that Lead category in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004. He earned eight Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) throughout the series's whole run and won that category in 1996 and 2001. Grammer won American Comedy Awards as the Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) in 1995 and 1996. Grammer won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of an ensemble cast of Frasier'' in 2000.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Another edition
External links
Detailed Listing of Frasier Crane Locations in Seattle
Cheers characters
Frasier characters
Fictional radio personalities
Fictional Harvard University people
Fictional University of Oxford people
Television characters introduced in 1984
Fictional characters from Seattle
Fictional attempted suicides
Crossover characters in television
Fictional American psychiatrists
American male characters in television | false | [
"is a Japanese manga, and anime television series, it is the sequel to NG Knight Lamune & 40. The character designer for the series was Tsukasa Kotobuki, noted for Saber Marionette. The show lasted for 26 episodes; the story of which follows the adventures of Baba Lamunade, the son of Baba Lamune (the protagonist of NG Knight Lamune & 40). A sequel OVA was created and titled and it follows the adventures of Cacao and Parfait, holy virgins, in their search and rescue mission of the 4th Warrior Ramunes, given to them by the apparent head of their religious order, Master Follower. The anime is licensed in North America by Discotek Media on December 2, 2019 and can be watched on Crunchyroll.\n\nA five volume manga by Mine Yoshizaki based on the series was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shonen Ace magazine from June 1996 to July 1998.\n\nThe main mecha of the series, Kaiser Fire, was featured in the 2011 video game Another Century's Episode Portable noted as being the only true super robot in the otherwise real robot cast. Kaiser Fire was also featured in the 2015 mobile game ''Super Robot Wars X-Ω\" as part of a limited time event.\n\nCharacters\nBaba Lamunade (Voiced by Takeshi Kusao): Lamunade bears a good resemblance to his father, since he is his son and the hero of the series. He is different from Ramune as he is less interested in video games than his father, but nevertheless amazed by them. He falls in love with more than one girl, apart from Parfait he develops sentimental feelings for Drum. He has the same catch phrase that his father uses (\"I'm feeling incredibly hot blooded!!! RIGHT NOW!!!) and sometimes states a fact, and say that its written in his DNA.\n\nParfait The Shrine Maiden (Voiced by Yuko Miyamura): She one of the two \"Shrine Maidens\" who brings Lamunade into the Doki Doki space. She is rather bossy and seems to have an assertive attitude towards Lamunade, whom she calls \"Lamuness\", like Milk in the first series. She acts no different, but does get jealous and angry when she sees her man with another girl. She has long magenta colored hair, and magenta eyes and her color scheme is magenta colored. In the OVA, Parfait is a holy virgin in training. Beyond the third episode of the OVA, she pilots an experimental mecha naked, as the cockpit is filled with water as a shock absorber.\n\nCacao (Voiced by Kyoko Hikami): She is the other \"Shrine Maiden\" along with Parfait. She is timid and kind of oblivious to what is going on around her. Cacao is not fearless and she can fight which surprises many due to her small frame. She has a pendant that helps their team find each and every \"Otamagate\". In the OVA, she is a full-fledged holy virgin and she has strong magical powers. The dark-skinned girl explains that this magic works best when the body is unconstricted, and is thus naked at various points throughout the OVA.\n\nDa Cider (Voiced by Kazuki Yao): The same character from the previous series. He meets up with the new Lamuness in the second episode after attempting to save him from Pheromone Lip and Narcist Dandy and is Lamuness' partner to pilot Kaiser Fire. He eventually follows the footsteps of the first generation Cider, that is fighting with Lamuness and at the end watching him fight Abraham.\n\nHeavy Metal Ko (Voiced by TARAKO): Cider's snake-like companion, also from the previous series.\n\nPQ (voiced by Satomi Kōrogi): He's the one who summon Kaiser Fire for Lamunade (Much like Tama Q did for King Scassher in the original series) and he is often pinched by him.\n\nAkakaze & Momokaze (Voiced by Takeshi Kusao & Chisa Yokoyama) – A.K.A. Ramune & Milk. They are now married and very in-love. They both hide under costumes which is a parody of Gatchaman since they do not want too many questions to be asked. They have become stupid and lazy and their costumes were their wedding clothing which Milk designed.\n\nNarcist Dandy & Pheromone Lip(Voiced by Yasunori Matsumoto & Michiko Neya): A grossly muscular man with a busty woman. These two are the new comic relief duo villains of the series. They try to stop Lamunade from reaching Don Genosai, but like Don Genosai they are priests of the Kira Kira temple.\n\nMito Natto (voiced by Showtaro Morikubo): He is a young dog ruler of Gao-Gao zone. Lamunade saves him from hunger and since then he became friends with him and is the owner of the second guardian knight Graf Thunder.\n\nDrum, Trumpet, Cello, and Organ Symphony (Voiced by Yuka Imai (does Symphony as well as Drum), Tomoko Kawakami (Trumpet) & Naoko Takano (Cello)): They are three cyborgs created to protect the Hero Lamuness, but for the first Lamuness. Lamune never awakened them in the series because he was not the one to find them, it was Lamunade. Drum Loves the 1st hero through Lamunade because they look alike, Cello is sweet and cute, and Trumpet is gentle and pretty. Organ Symphony is the creator of the female cyborgs, in which Drum is modeled after her. They can pilot the 3rd guardian knight \"Water Barron\". Drum gives Lamuness a bell to call them if he ever needs help.\n\nDon Genosai(Voiced by Kôzô Shioya): The main villain mastermind in charge of resurrecting Abraham, but is the head priest of the Kira Kira temple. It is later revealed he was under Abraham's control.\n\nBQ (voiced by Satomi Kōrogi): After when Abraham awakens within the body of first Lamuness, BQ appeared to command Narcissist Dandy and Pheromone Lip.\n\nBlack Lamuness: aka Abraham: Abraham uses the body of Lamuness I, but when Lamunade defeats him he unleashed his true body to him.\n\nMecha\n\nHoly Knights\nKaiser Fire: Powers include flight, the Kaiser Fi-Blade which launches fire birds, and an ice magic arrow called the Diamond Arrow.\nGraf Thunder: Powers include flight and the Grand Volt Crash which uses its wrist harpoons to launch lightning dogs.\nWater Baron: Powers include teleportation, dual head guns, hand energy discs, and the Baron Water Attack which uses water circles to launch a water dragon.\nKaiser Fire Neo: Exclusive to the manga adaptation, this evolved version of the original Kaiser Fire's powers include the Royal Fi-Blade and self-repair.\n\nEvil Knights\nTiger FZ: Appears in episodes 1 and 2. Powers include a cannon for each arm and missile launchers around the body.\nUnknown 1: Appears in episode 3. Powers include a back missile pod and a chain-like electric whip.\nMechabatton DX: Appears in episode 4. Powers include fight and a double barreled tank cannon.\nHeinkel VR: Appears in episode 5. Its only known power is a wrecking ball on the head.\nUnknown 2: Appears in episode 6. Its only known power is a large back cannon armed with hyper cement, a gatling gun, and a Super Macho Missile.\nBismark GT: Appears in episode 7. Powers include an underside tractor beam, mind control waves from the dish on its shell, and a rapid fire missile pod from the shell.\nUnknown 3: Appears in episode 8. Powers include a pair of machine guns on the torso and extending hand claws.\nHockel FK-1: Appears in episode 9. Powers include flight, a rocket launcher in each wrist and knee, and two missile launchers in each pectoral.\nJunkers VQ: Appears in episode 11. Its only known power is a pair of arm missile pods.\nBrocken SK: Appears in episode 11. Powers include a statue disguise, mind control waves, dual shoulder missile pods, a torso tractor beam, a laser beam from the eye, and an electric whip in the left arm.\nMirror Spark: Appears in episode 14. Powers include a reflective body, controlling crystals, a head energy beam, and teleportation.\nStone Summoner: Appears in episode 15. Powers include metamorphic waves that spawn rock men and controlling Stone Devil.\nStone Devil: Appears in episode 15. Powers include burrowing, speed, eight spear legs, reformation, electric mouth webs, and a high resistance to heat.\nSabot: Appears in episode 16. Powers include flight and nightmare waves from the mouth.\nUnknown 4: Appears in episode 17. Powers include a flamethrower in the right hand, teleporting dice on the shoulders, levitation, pelvis missiles, and summoning flying rocks.\nUnknown 5: Appears in episode 18. Powers include flight, body switching red fog, and a cannon.\nTenko: Appears in episode 19. Powers include age reverting bubbles, levitation, a dimensional portal for magic in its body to pull out animals and bombs, a circular saw on the underside, and sharp claws.\nUnknown 6: Appears in episode 20. Powers include a jet mode and a machine gun for each arm and on each side of its head.\nMecha Dragon: Appears in episode 21. Powers include burrowing, sharp claws, mouth flames, and electric bites.\nMecha Dandy: Appears in episode 24. Powers include flight, a pair of axes, and strength.\n\nSee also\nNG Knight Ramune & 40\nRamune\nKnights of Ramune\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nStarchild official Page\n\n1996 anime television series debuts\n1996 Japanese television series debuts\n1996 Japanese television series endings\n1997 anime OVAs\nCentral Park Media\nAshi Productions\nTV Tokyo original programming",
"is a Japanese anime television series begun in 1995, created by Takara and Sunrise under the direction of Shinji Takamatsu, and was the sixth in the Yūsha/Brave metaseries. Goldran follows the adventures of three young boys who are tasked with finding alien robot fighters, or Braves, that are sleeping in the form of crystals. Their major antagonist is the flamboyant and thoroughly incompetent Walter, and the villains that follow him are often similarly humorous. The entire show is extremely focused on comedy and silliness almost to the exclusion of much in the way of storytelling, although the series does develop some running plot lines towards its end. In terms of television ratings, Goldran was the peak of the Brave series' popularity.\n\nPlot\nThree boys, Takuya, Kazuki, and Dai are from Ishinowa elementary school in the sixth grade. They are actively a strong, curious, mischievous trio. They obtained a mysterious jewel's \"Power Stone\". They bring back Dran, the golden robot, a brave who slept within a Power Stone and they became his master. However, Prince Walter Walzac, who aims at the Power Stone, has attacked them. They then go to an adventure for searching eight Power Stones that were scattered all over the world. They now aim at El Dorado's Legendra with Goldran.\n\nCharacters\n\nBrave's Master\n\n12 years old. The leader of the trio. His good techniques is acting like a whiny child that tricks adults. He's a very active, cheerful and very greedy shrewd boy. He likes video games and plastic models. He hates studying, causing a stroke just to have heard the word \"Test\". He's quick-witted about mischief.\n\n12 years old. He's a childhood friend of Takuya. He is tall and very smart and has the knowledge of a university student. And he is the brain of the trio. He does a very cynical, severe speech and behavior. However, his zeal to the adventure is not completely inferior at all to the other two. He likes inventing, and his dream to apply an invention that a person can make. He likes idol-type girls, and he also likes pretty girls with round butts. \n \n\n12 years old, a childhood friend of Takuya. He has a thickish physique, and is very good at sports. He is an animal romanticist in the mild-mannered nature. However, he assists in their adventures, to the intrigue of Takuya and Kazuki. He is also obstinate. He writes an adventure diary every day. He likes cooking and flower arrangements.\n\n20 years old. A royal prince of the Walzac and serves as the main antagonist for the first half of the series. After awakening Captain Shark he becomes a protagonist and changes his name to Captain Eta Izak (イーター・イーザック船長|Ītā īzakku senchō)\n\n60 years old. Walter's butler and second in command. Very loyal to his master and disciplined.\n\n12 years old. A second prince of the Walzac and very cold hearted. He is often accompanied by cyborg soldiers and his dog, .\n\n20 years old. Prince Walter's fiance and stalker. She loves Walter very much despite him not loving her in return.\n\nEmperor of the Walzac.\n\nThe Braves\nThe mecha themselves, called Braves, were created by prolific mechanical designer Kunio Okawara. While some of the Braves transform into transportation (e.g. cars and trains), others transform into animals (e.g. tyrannosaurus and shark). Goldran itself is formed from Dran (a car) and Golgon (a tyrannosaurus). The Braves themselves are aliens from planet in the Golden Galaxy created by . If the Braves are defeated or their masters are killed they will revert into Power Stones, indestructible gems that can only reactivate them by reciting an ancient incantation. When not in combat the Braves can regenerate from any wound they received.\n\n(Voiced by Ken Narita): the ultimate form of Goldran. All Gold braves were united with each other. The finisher is Great Archery (Golden Arrow).\n (Voiced by Ken Narita): the second form of Goldran. He got the ability to fly, because he united with Sora-Kage. His weapon is the Missile launcher.\n (Voiced by Ken Narita): a large golden robot with which Dran unites with Golgon. He has a weak point: he cannot fly, although the jet boosters under his feet grant him levitation. His weapons are SUPER Ryugaken (super dragon fang sword) and Leg Buster and Shoulder Vulcan and Arm Shooter.\n (Voiced by Ken Narita): he is a Samurai robot. He transforms into a golden sports car. His weapon is Ryugaken(dragon fang sword) and it's a long Japanese sword. He has difficulty dealing with his naughty masters, being like their guardian. He panicked considerably because four children were born to Maria, who was the girl who had helped him and the planet where only robots live. His children's names are, the eldest son, Dorataro, the second son, Dorajiro, the third son, Dorasaburo, and his daughter, Dorayo. He forms the chest of Goldran.\n: she is a Golden dinosaur robot. She is a partner of Dran, and they trust each other. She shows up from the earth. She was manipulated one time by Walter. She forms the body and head of Goldran.\n (Voiced by Naoki Makishima): a golden Ninja robot. He transforms into a golden hawk robot. The joker of the group. He seems that he is not suitable for a secret activity because his golden body is too distracting. His weapons are Hishouken and Shuriken and Sickle and chain, Shadow launcher. He forms the wings of Sky Goldran and could create a set of wings for Lean Kaiser to create Sky Leon Kaiser, though this form was never seen in the show.\n: the second form of Leon Kaiser who can fly after merging with Sora-Kage to form the same winged backpack as Sky Goldran. In this form he can also use the Missile launcher. This form was never seen in the show, though the toys could combine to create this form.\n (Voiced by Ryotaro Okiayu): a robot with which Leon unites with Kaiser. His weapons are Kaiser Javelin and Kaiser Gun and Kaiser Fan. He forms the body additions of Great Goldran.\n (Voiced by Ryotaro Okiayu): he is a shōgun-styled robot. Transforming into an orange fighter jet. He is considerably high-handed, because he is a shōgun. However, he's a loyal, faithful person. His weapon is the Naginata Sword. He is a brave found by the last clue, first fought alone. He forms the chest of Leon Kaiser.\n: he is a golden lion robot. He is Leon's partner; summoned by Leon. He forms the body and head of Leon Kaiser.\n\n(Voiced by Naoki Bando): the ultimate form of all Silver Knights. His self-insistence is more intenser from Silverion because Fire Silver increases Silverion's powers. His finishing move is \"God Finish\".\n (Voiced by Naoki Bando): silver robot formed by Jet Silver, Star Silver and Drill Silver. His arms are the Tri-Shield and Tri-Lancer.\n (Voiced by Naoki Bando): the leader of the Silver Knights. He transforms from a jet plane into a red robot. He is elegant and a gentleman. His weapon is a Jet Spear and Jet Shield. His motif is a knight in Greece. He forms the torso of Silverion or God Silverion.\n : (Voiced by Naoki Bando): he transforms from a patrol car into a blue robot. He is cheerful and is snappish at times. His motif is a knight in Rome. His weapon is the Star Sword and Star Shield. He forms the arms and head of Silverion or God Silverion.\n (Voiced by Naoki Bando): he transforms from a drill tank into a green robot. He has herculean strength and is obstinate. His weapon is the Drill Axe and Drill Shield. His motif is a Viking in Northern Europe. He forms the legs of Silverion or God Silverion.\n Voiced by Naoki Bando): he transforms from an ambulance into a robot. He is more cheerful than Star Silver and likes joking around. His weapon is the Fire Bowgun (crossbow) and Fire Shield. He forms the body additions of God Silverion.\n\nOther Braves\n (Voiced by Chafurin): transforms from a huge, black locomotive into a large robot. Advenger has the braves living in his hangars. He flies over the sky, run in space, and can ride the Railroad of Light that leads to Legendra. Takuya and the Braves go out to travel for the adventure, getting on-board him.\n(Voiced by Jin Yamanoi): hidden ninth brave. Transforming into a shark, he was originally not supposed to be awakened unless the eight braves on earth were to fall into the hands of evil.\n\nWalzac Machines\n: appears starting in episode 1 although is not seen in humanoid robot form until episode 11. Powers include flight, storing custom gears, dual double laser cannons, a scorpion form, burrowing, a shield on the left wrist, and three laser guns in the forehead. Customized from Transformers Generation 1 Scorponok though he was never released as a toy in this line.\n: appears starting in episode 1. Powers include flight, a beam machine gun, foot skis, a bazooka, and burrowing. Reappear in Brave Saga and Brave Saga 2.\n: appears in episodes 13 and 14. Powers include transforming into a car and a missile on each shoulder.\n: appears starting in episode 30. Powers include flight, a beam machine gun, and a flamethrower.\n: appears in episode 1. Powers include flight, three cannons on each wrist, a cannon on each shoulder and knee, shoulder spike missiles, and a bomb launcher on the back.\nDesetron: appears in episode 2. Powers include flight, an electric tentacle in the left wrist, and a fan in the torso strong enough to produce sandstorms.\nMarinda: appears in episode 3. Powers include swimming, a machine gun and water gun hybrid called the Aqua Cutter Gun for the right arm, foot skis, and a grapple claw in the abdomen.\nSonicron: appears in episode 4. Powers include flight, wing bombs, and a laser cannon.\nTurbolar: appears in episode 5. Powers include speed, a race car mode, a rifle, and levitation.\nCementos: appears in episode 6. Powers include flight, a cement mixer on each hip, and a Chinese sword.\n: appears in episode 7. Powers include laser turrets around the body, tank treads, and a powerful cannon called the Great Big Cannon hidden under the bridge.\nLambda: appears in episode 8. Powers include flight, a shotgun, a chainsaw in each arm, and foot wheels.\nKermadick: appears in episode 9. Powers include swimming, retractable claw arms with the hand ends launchable on a wire, and palm lasers.\n: appears in episode 10. Powers include flight, hurricane winds from the fans on its shoulders, and firing electric barriers from the forehead crescent.\n: appears starting in episode 12 although it is not seen in humanoid robot form until episode 30. Customized from Transformers - Battlestars: Return of Convoy's Sky Garry. Powers include flight, storage of custom gears, a pair of powerful main cannons on each foot, a double barreled defense turret on each shoulder and below the bridge, a torso heat ray that can destroy a Himalayan mountain in one hit, launchable arms, and three laser guns in the forehead.\n: appears in episodes 46 and 47. Powers include flight, teleportation, body missiles, body lasers, a torso heat beam, and regeneration.\nBlizzardos: appears in episode 12. Powers include flight, a fan on each shoulder and in the torso that emit freezing winds, a bazooka, and a machine gun in each finger with explosive bullets.\nSamonda: appears in episode 13. Powers include flight, a rocket launcher, and dividing itself into smaller robots.\nPlasma Pulse: appears in episode 14. Powers include levitation, lightning bolts from the thunder bolts in each hand, and an electric cage platform on the back.\nKamaruta: appears in episode 15. Powers include flight, a net gun in the right hand, and three launchable scythe bladed fingers on each hand.\nInoichigo: appears in episode 15. Powers include creating realistic holograms of previous gear commanders and a bomb cannon in the \"neck\".\nGiga Polygon: appears in episode 17. Powers include a machine gun on each shoulder and flight.\nJoint Long: appears in episode 18. Powers include flight, swimming, and combining. Walter's can also release a pair of chains from within the torso armed with red electricity.\nJoint Long King: appears in episode 18. Powers include flight, coiling, and red electric bolts from the eyes.\nMogelaser: appears in episode 19. Powers include burrowing in tank form, a large nose drill armed with a flamethrower, and a pair of rocket pods in the torso.\nWalkion: appears in episode 20. Powers include flight, a 6-tube rocket pod in each shoulder, a rapier that emits pink electric beams, and spawning four holograms of itself. Reappears in Brave Saga and Brave Saga 2.\nHell Thomas: appears in episode 21. Powers include pincer claw arms while in train mode and a staff made of railroad ties that can emit electricity.\nMetal Satan: appears in episode 22. Powers include flight, a double bladed scythe, and a beam cannon in the torso.\nShell Buster: appears in episode 23. Powers include a giant drill form, spike missiles from each shield, and speed.\nStriker: appears in episode 24. Powers include morphing into a flying soccer ball, a large iron ball stored in the torso, and a machine gun in the mouth.\nDan Golem: appears in episode 25. Powers include burrowing through solid rock, flight, and a ball form.\n: appears in episode 27. Powers include transforming into a super sonic jet, an imitation Imperial Sword, and fusing with Golgon.\n: appears in episode 27. Powers include Arm Shooters, Leg Busters, flight, and an imitation Super Imperial Sword.\nDespider: appears in episode 28. Powers include flight, webs from the four spider legs from its back, and a spider-like probe in the torso\nNova: appears in episode 28. Powers include flight and a powerful heat ray in the torso.\nMetia: appears in episode 29. Powers include flight, swimming, four bladed legs, emitting pink electricity from the body, and self destructing.\nUltima: appears in episodes 30 and 31. Powers include flight, beam absorbing and rechanneling, an electric grapple claw, and swimming.\n: appears in episode 31. A combination from several Transformers characters such as being able to transform into a jet form from Transformers Zone's Sonic Bomber. Powers include a drill from Transformers Zone's Dai Atlas, flight, and beam rifle. His head is based on Red Geist from The Brave of Legend Da-Garn, who in turn was based on Transformers Victory's Deszaras.\n: appears starting in episode 31. Powers include light speed flight, controlling five replicas of the original Death Garrigun, an electric cage on the bow, a planet destroying energy cannon in its bow called the Planet Buster, laser turrets, and reformation.\nZorbetto: Appears in episode 34. Powers include flight and a pair of beam guns.\nVeetazen: appears in episode 35. Powers include flight, ten laser guns on its top, four laser guns on its bottom, and seven laser cannons in the center of the body.\nBazaruto: appears in episode 36. Powers include flight, an energy ball cannon on the underside, a freezing foam canister, a triple laser canister, a 19-barreled machine gun canister, a cyclone launcher canister, a double barreled energy turret in its top, a laser gun in each of its five legs, and an electric net canister.\nBiskvito: appears in episode 38. Powers include flight, a pair of laser guns on each wing, and four machine guns on the nose.\nEmbryo: appears in episodes 39 and 43. Powers include flight, teleportation, eight electric tentacles armed with laser guns in the tips, a psychic barrier that can throw objects, and can emit highly destructive heat shockwaves and beams from its face. Reappears in Brave Saga.\nDuplicate Embryo: appears in episode 43. They are four duplications of Embryo armed with only flight, teleportation, and tentacles with only the laser gun armed tips. Unlike the original they can also emit energy beams from their side fins.\nDraiek: appears in episode 40. Powers include flight, eight double barreled laser turrets, and forming electric cages by separating.\nGenociz: appears in episode 41. Powers include flight, two large vortex emitters, and six tentacles.\n: appears in episodes 46, 47, and 48. It is the flagship of the Walzac Republic Empire commanded by Treasure Walzac armed with a star destroying warhead called the .\n\nOther Hostiles\nEskalpone: appears in episode 8. Powers include smokescreen, flight, and a double barreled turret on the back.\nUsarin: appears in episodes 16, 28, and 29. Powers include flight, fourteen remote controlled beam guns called Carrot Bits stored in its basket, and a large hammer called the Picopico Hammer. Reappears in Brave Saga and Brave Saga 2.\nMirror Cat Demon: appears in episode 25. Powers include levitation, speed, green eye beams, and an elongated demon form.\nConstructionbot: appear in episode 32. Powers include foot wheels, drill arms, a pair of machine guns in the body, and a pair of rockets in the torso.\nMajin Mugore: appears in episode 32. Powers include levitation, mouth flames, and eye beams.\nAlien Alkali: Appear in 33. They are armed with a revolver.\nAlkali Fortress: appears in episode 33. Powers include flight, probes armed with a pair of laser guns, a mouth with suction and a heat beam, and energy bolts from its left eye.\nSodovenger: appears in episode 37. It is a copy of Advenger from planet Sodra. Reappears in Brave Saga 2.\nSogoldran: appears in episode 37. It is a copy of Sky Goldran from planet Sodra. Aside from Sky Godran's powers it can also extend its body parts and has a powerful cannon in its torso. Reappears in Brave Saga 2.\nSodon Kaiser: appears in episode 37. It is a copy of Leon Kaiser from planet Sodra. Reappears in Brave Saga 2.\nGod Sodoverion: appears in episode 37. It is a copy of God Silverion from planet Sodra. Reappears in Brave Saga 2.\nGargoyle: appears in episode 42. Its only known power is heat beams.\n\nSee also\nBrave series\n\nExternal links \nOfficial Sunrise Goldran website\n\n1995 anime television series debuts\nBrave series\nSuper robot anime and manga\nSunrise (company)"
]
|
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career"
]
| C_4de582934a6e4ca0a79fbdde4baffdfa_1 | What did charles say about Journalists? | 1 | What did Charles Kuralt say about journalists? | Charles Kuralt | Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina | false | [
"Ophelia Clenlans (c. 1841 – February 12, 1907) was a civil rights activist and journalist from Omaha, Nebraska.\n\nBiography\nClenlans was born a slave in about 1841 in Platte County, Missouri, and came to Omaha. Clenlans married Emanuel S. Clenlans and they had one daughter, Laura (married name of Craig).\n\nClenlans was appointed a member of the executive board of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in 1896. She was also a prominent member of the Omaha Colored Women's Club led by Ella Mahammitt. She was a prime mover or the organization of the North and South Omaha Colored Woman's club. She was treasurer of the Nebraska chapter of the Ruth Corps, an Omaha religious group, and an officer of the Order of the Eastern Star.\n\nShe was an outspoken activist for racial equality. In 1901, she wrote in the Omaha World-Herald about a debate over whether black women should be allowed to join white Women's Clubs throughout the country: \"I belong to the old slavery days. I know what it is to suffer, and I know what it is to feel grateful. I am grateful to my white sisters for their assistance in many ways, and I want them to understand that we only desire to learn of them that we may be better enabled to help ourselves and our families.[...]\"\n\"Who is responsible for the white blood in black veins, but the whites themselves, and who can say but what black blood flows in the veins of many a woman whose skin would cause the rose to blush? Did the blacks do it? Were they the ones that caused the color of the negro to change? Shame on such hypocrisy. Shame on a woman who is afraid to take another woman by the hand and say, 'God bless you in your noble work.'\".\n\nShe also wrote in the World-Herald about interracial marriage: \"As to love between the two colors, that is a matter open to discussion, yet to my mind, love is a God-given instinct, over which no man or woman has control.[...] Intermarriage with the whites is last in their thoughts, but intellectual equality they have a right to expect, and who has a right to deny them this boon?\"\n\nClenlans died on February 12, 1907, of cancer and pneumonia. Her funeral was at the St. John's AME Church and she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.\n\nReferences\n\n1841 births\nWriters from Omaha, Nebraska\nJournalists from Nebraska\nAfrican-American life in Omaha, Nebraska\nActivists for African-American civil rights\n1907 deaths\nPeople from Platte County, Missouri\nJournalists from Missouri\nAmerican women journalists\n19th-century American journalists\nAfrican-American women journalists\nAfrican-American journalists\n19th-century American women writers\nDeaths from cancer in Nebraska\nDeaths from pneumonia in Nebraska\nClubwomen\nWomen civil rights activists\n20th-century African-American people\n20th-century African-American women",
"Martin Samuel (born 25 July 1964) is an English sports columnist for the Daily Mail newspaper and a sports columnist for GQ Magazine since 2012. He has previously worked for The Times, News of the World, Jewish Chronicle, Daily Express, The Sun and Sunday People. Samuel is an occasional guest on the Sunday Supplement television show.\n\nCareer \nSamuel began his career at Hayters news agency in London. He wrote for several national newspapers in the UK before he settled initially at The Times, where he was named Sports Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2007, and Sports Journalist of the Year at the British Sports Journalism Awards in 2005, 2006 and 2007. He was also Sports Journalist of the Year at the 'What The Papers Say' awards in 2002, 2005 and 2006. He moved to the Daily Mail in 2008, replacing the paper's sports columnist, Paul Hayward, who was returning to The Guardian.\n\nDuring his time at the Daily Mail, Samuel was again named Sports Journalist of the Year at the British Sports Journalism Awards in 2010 and 2013, Sports Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2013, and Sports Commentator of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards in 2014. In 2012, Samuel was named top in a UK Press Gazette poll of Britain's best sports journalists. In January 2015, he was named in Debrett's List of the 500 Most Influential People in Britain.\n\nSamuel ghostwrote Harry Redknapp's autobiography, Always Managing, published in 2013 and its follow-up, 'A Man Walks On To A Pitch', published a year later. He also wrote a book with Malcolm Macdonald, \"How To Score Goals\", published in 1985.\n\nAwards\nSports Writer of the Year, What the Papers Say awards (2002)\nSports Writer of the Year, What the Papers Say awards (2005)\nSports Writer of the Year, What the Papers Say awards (2006)\nSports Writer of the Year, Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain (2005)\nSports Writer of the Year, Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain (2006)\nSports Writer of the Year, Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain (2007)\nSports Journalist of the Year, Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain, 2010\nSports Journalist of the Year, Sports Journalists' Association of Great Britain, 2013\nSports Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards (2008)\nSports Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards (2013)\nSports Commentator of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards in 2014\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Martin Samuel - Daily Mail articles\n\nLiving people\nBritish sportswriters\nBritish Jews\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nDaily Mail journalists\n1964 births"
]
|
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"What did charles say about Journalists?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_4de582934a6e4ca0a79fbdde4baffdfa_1 | What network did he work? | 2 | What network did Charles Kuralt work for? | Charles Kuralt | Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER | CBS | Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina | true | [
"Peter McCormack is a British Bitcoin investor, podcaster, former in the advertising industry, who founded What Bitcoin Did podcast McCormack has written the book Online Advertising Does not Work. What Bitcoin Did has been teaching and podcasting one to one conversation.\n\nLife \nMcCormack was born in Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, Berkshire. He grew up in Kempston, a town and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford, Bedfordshire. He dropped out of Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College where he studied Music Industry Management in 2000. From June 2005 to February 2007, McCormack was of commercial director at Evolving Media, which launched his temporary career in digital marketing. From February 2007 to May 2009 he was managing director of Evolving Media Network. In September 2009 he set up the digital transformation consultancy McCormack & Morrison with his Evolving colleague Oliver Morrison.\n\nMcCormack's mother died in January 2017, after which McCormack took time off to grieve. Around the same time, after about a year of trading bitcoin, McCormack started blogging about the crypto industry. In 2017, he got briefly rich on Bitcoin but then \"lost almost everything\".\n\nIn November 2017, McCormack started his podcast What Bitcoin Did. In October 2019, he released the first episode of his other podcast, \"Defiance\".\n\nWhat Bitcoin Did Podcast \nPeter started What Bitcoin Did Podcast after quitting the advertising industry and discovering bitcoin, he started the podcast in November 2017 as a hobby to learn more. On What Bitcoin Did, McCormack interviews experts on the topics of Bitcoin development, adoption, privacy, and investment. He has discussed political topics on the podcast as well. Some notable figures McCormack has featured on What Bitcoin Did are Adam Back, Brian Armstrong (businessman),Nayib Bukele, Vitalik Buterin and many more people. The podcast has grown to over 100 episodes with a guest list that is a testament to the diversity of knowledge and opinions that represent the broader Bitcoin community.\n\nDefiance Podcast \nDefiance has no political bias. They select guests based on the story alone and will not enter into any debates regarding guest choice or topics covered. Nobody is \"given a platform\", guests are offered an interview as they stated on website.\n\nBedford FC \nPeter is in negotiations to buy the football team Bedford F.C., a football club based in Bedford, England. <ref>\n\nHe announced in December 2021 that he had agreed on a deal to acquire Bedford F.C., with the intention of changing their name to Real Bedford at the end of the 2021/22 season. \"There is no intention of creating a token.\" Peter's team said.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1978 births\nBitcoin\nPodcasters\nFootball",
"Adam Montoya (born June 12, 1984), better known by his online alias SeaNanners, is an American YouTuber.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly life and work\nAfter graduating from San Diego State University, Montoya did freelance work such as filming weddings. During this time, Adam, finding inspiration from other early YouTube gaming commentators, decided to record and upload his own game commentaries.\n\nWork with Machinima\nOn December 3, 2009, Montoya uploaded a video to his channel explaining that he was now partnered with Machinima, Inc. and that they would be posting his gameplay videos on their network channel. On June 14, 2010, Montoya posted a video to his channel stating that he was a full-time employee of Machinima.\n\nJETPAK\nOn November 5, 2014, Montoya announced that he and his associates had launched an multi-channel network, JETPAK. He wanted to create a network that did not contractually take advantage of YouTubers and their channels. The network is operated by former Machinima employees.\n\nThe Paranormal Action Squad\nOn November 2, 2016, Montoya announced he would co-star with Scott Robison and Evan Fong in a new YouTube Premium original series, The Paranormal Action Squad. The animated comedy aired on November 16, 2016.\n\nBreak from content creation and return\nIn 2018, Montoya slowed his YouTube video release rate from at least one video per week for most of his solo career to only releasing five videos in 2018. Montoya did not officially state anything about a permanent retirement, but in guest appearances on friends' videos, he discussed taking a break from YouTube and video creation to get \"passive income up and running, whether I'm doing this or doing that [...] looking heavily into real estate\". On August 29, 2020, during his return, he cited several reasons such as mental health and stress for his two-year absence.\n\nSee also\n\n List of YouTubers\n Rooster Teeth\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nVideo game commentators\nSan Diego State University alumni\nMale YouTubers\nGaming YouTubers\nComedy YouTubers\nShorty Award winners\nMinecraft YouTubers"
]
|
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"What did charles say about Journalists?",
"I don't know.",
"What network did he work?",
"CBS"
]
| C_4de582934a6e4ca0a79fbdde4baffdfa_1 | What awards did he win? | 3 | What awards did Charles Kuralt win? | Charles Kuralt | Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER | Ernie Pyle Award. | Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina | true | [
"The following is a list of awards and nominations received by Welsh actor and director Anthony Hopkins. \n\nHe is an Oscar-winning actor, having received six Academy award nominations winning two of these for Best Actor for his performance as Hannibal Lecter in the Jonathan Demme thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and for his performance as Anthony in Florian Zeller's drama The Father (2020). He also was nominated for his performances as in James Ivory's The Remains of the Day (1993), Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone's drama Nixon (1995), John Quincy Adams in Amistad (1997), and Pope Benedict XVI in the Fernando Meirelles drama The Two Popes (2019). \n\nFor his work on film and television, he has received eight Golden Globe award nominations. In 2006 he was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award for his lifetime achievement in the entertainment industry. He has received six Primetime Emmy award nominations winning two—one in 1976 for his performance as Richard Hauptmann in The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and the other in 1981 for his performance as Adolf Hitler in The Bunker, as well as seven Screen Actors Guild award nominations all of which have been respectively lost.\n\nMajor associations\n\nAcademy Awards \n2 wins out of 6 nominations\n\nBAFTA Awards \n4 wins (and one honorary award) out of 9 nominations\n\nEmmy Awards \n2 wins out of 6 nominations\n\nGolden Globe Awards \n0 wins (and one honorary award) out of 8 nominations\n\nOlivier Awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nScreen Actors Guild Awards \n0 wins out of 7 nominations\n\nAudience awards\n\nMTV Movie + TV awards \n0 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nPeople's Choice awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nCritic and association awards\n\nAlliance of Women Film Journalists awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nBoston Society of Film Critics awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nCableACE awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nChicago Film Critics Association awards \n1 win out of 5 nominations\n\nCritics' Choice awards \n1 win out of 4 nominations\n\nDallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association awards \n2 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nKansas City Film Critics Circle awards \n2 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nLondon Critics Circle Film awards \n1 win out of 5 nominations\n\nLos Angeles Film Critics Association awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nNational Board of Review awards \n2 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nNational Society of Film Critics awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nNew York Film Critics Circle awards \n1 win out of 3 nominations\n\nOnline Film & Television Association awards \n1 win out of 3 nominations\n\nOnline Film Critics Society awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nPhoenix Film Critics Society awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nSoutheastern Film Critics Association awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nSt. Louis Film Critics Association awards \n1 win out of 2 nomination\n\nWomen's Image Network awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nFilm festival awards\n\nHollywood Film Festival awards \n2 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nLocarno International Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nMethod Fest awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nMoscow International Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nSan Sebastian International Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nSanta Barbara International Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nShoWest Convention awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nSitges - Catalonian International Film Festival awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nUSA Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nVirginia Film Festival awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nInternational awards\n\nBAFTA/LA Britannia awards \n1 win out of 1 nominations\n\nDavid di Donatello awards \n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nEuropean Film Awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nEvening Standard British Film awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nJupiter awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nNew Zealand Screen awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nSant Jordi awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nYoga awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nMiscellaneous awards\n\n20/20 awards \n1 win out of 3 nominations\n\nAARP Movies for Grownups awards \n1 win out of 4 nominations\n\nFangoria Chainsaw awards \n3 wins out of 4 nominations\n\nGolden Raspberry awards \n0 wins out of 2 nominations\n\nHasty Pudding Theatricals awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nMovieGuide awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nSatellite awards \n0 wins out of 1 nomination\n\nSaturn awards \n1 win out of 5 nominations\n\nWalk of Fame \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nWestern Heritage awards \n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nReferences\n\nHopkins, Anthony",
"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"
]
|
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"What did charles say about Journalists?",
"I don't know.",
"What network did he work?",
"CBS",
"What awards did he win?",
"Ernie Pyle Award."
]
| C_4de582934a6e4ca0a79fbdde4baffdfa_1 | How many years did he do "on the road" | 4 | How many years did Charles Kuralt do "on the road"? | Charles Kuralt | Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina | false | [
"The Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) is a test used by doctors to determine how severely migraines affect a patient's life. Patients are asked questions about the frequency and duration of their headaches, as well as how often these headaches limited their ability to participate in activities at work, at school, or at home.\n\nThe test was evaluated by the professional journal Neurology in 2001; it was found to be both reliable and valid.\n\nQuestions\nThe MIDAS contains the following questions:\n\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss work or school because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last 3 months was your productivity at work or school reduced by half or more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 1 where you missed work or school.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you not do household work because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last three months was your productivity in household work reduced by half of more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 3 where you did not do household work.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches?\n\nThe patient's score consists of the total of these five questions. Additionally, there is a section for patients to share with their doctors:\n\nWhat your Physician will need to know about your headache:\n\nA. On how many days in the last 3 months did you have a headache?\n(If a headache lasted more than 1 day, count each day.)\t\n\nB. On a scale of 0 - 10, on average how painful were these headaches? \n(where 0 = no pain at all and 10 = pain as bad as it can be.)\n\nScoring\nOnce scored, the test gives the patient an idea of how debilitating his/her migraines are based on this scale:\n\n0 to 5, MIDAS Grade I, Little or no disability \n\n6 to 10, MIDAS Grade II, Mild disability\n\n11 to 20, MIDAS Grade III, Moderate disability\n\n21+, MIDAS Grade IV, Severe disability\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMigraine Treatment\n\nMigraine",
"Do Something is a non-profit organization with the goal of motivating young people.\n\nDo Something may refer to:\n\"Do Something\" (1929 song), performed by Helen Kane in the movie Nothing But the Truth\n\"Do Something\" (Macy Gray song), a 1999 song by Macy Gray on the album On How Life Is\n\"Do Somethin'\", a 2004 song by Britney Spears on the album Greatest_Hits: My Prerogative\n\"Do Something\", a 2007 song the Eagles on the album Long Road out of Eden\n\"Do Something\", a 2008 song by Pepper on the album Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations\n\"Do Something\", a 2012 song by Matthew West on the album Into The Light\n\nSee also"
]
|
[
"Charles Kuralt",
"Early life and career",
"What did charles say about Journalists?",
"I don't know.",
"What network did he work?",
"CBS",
"What awards did he win?",
"Ernie Pyle Award.",
"How many years did he do \"on the road\"",
"I don't know."
]
| C_4de582934a6e4ca0a79fbdde4baffdfa_1 | How many Peabody awards did he win? | 5 | How many Peabody awards did Charles Kuralt win? | Charles Kuralt | Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship. After graduation from Central High School in 1951, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called "American Adventure: A Study Of Man In The New World" in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton. After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent. In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.
Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "capture[d] the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ... the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning.
Early life and career
Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. Charles' father, Wallace H. Kuralt. Sr., moved his family to Charlotte in 1945, when he became Director of Public Welfare in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area. During the years he lived in that house, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country. Later, at Charlotte's Central High School, Kuralt was voted "Most Likely to Succeed." in his graduating class of 1951. In 1948, he was named one of four National Voice of Democracy winners at age 14, where he won a $500 scholarship.
After graduation he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became editor of The Daily Tar Heel and joined St. Anthony Hall. While there, he appeared in a starring role in a radio program called American Adventure: A Study of Man in The New World in the episode titled "Hearth Fire", which aired on August 4, 1955. It is a telling of the advent of TVA's building lakes written by John Ehle and directed by John Clayton.
After graduating from UNC, Kuralt worked as a reporter for the Charlotte News in his home state, where he wrote "Charles Kuralt's People," a column that won him an Ernie Pyle Award. He moved to CBS in 1957 as a writer, where he became well known as the host of the Eyewitness to History series. He traveled around the world as a journalist for the network, including stints as CBS's Chief Latin American Correspondent and then as Chief West Coast Correspondent.
In 1967, Kuralt and a CBS camera crew accompanied Ralph Plaisted in his first attempt to reach the North Pole by snowmobile, which resulted in the documentary To the Top of the World and his book of the same name.
"On the Road"
Kuralt was said to have tired of what he considered the excessive rivalry between reporters on the hard news beats:
"I didn't like the competitiveness or the deadline pressure," he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, upon his induction into their Hall of Fame. "I was sure that Dick Valeriani of NBC was sneaking around behind my back — and of course, he was! — getting stories that would make me look bad the next day. Even though I covered news for a long time, I was always hoping I could get back to something like my little column on the Charlotte News."
When he finally persuaded CBS to let him try out just such an idea for three months, it turned into a quarter-century project. "On the Road" became a regular feature on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1967. Kuralt hit the road in a motor home (he wore out six before he was through) with a small crew and avoided the interstates in favor of the nation's back roads in search of America's people and their doings. He said, "Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything".
According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.
Since 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space.
CBS Sunday Morning anchor
On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. Kuralt left the weekday broadcasts in March 1982, but continued to anchor the Sunday morning program until April 3, 1994, when he retired after 15 years as host and was succeeded by Charles Osgood.
Retirement and death
At age 60, Kuralt surprised many by retiring from CBS News. At the time, he was the longest tenured on-air personality in the News Division. However, he hinted that his retirement might not be complete. In 1995, he narrated the TLC documentary The Revolutionary War, and in early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, "An American Moment", presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". Then, Kuralt also agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades.
He was hospitalized and died of complications from systemic lupus erythematosus at the age of 62 at New York–Presbyterian Hospital.
One of Kuralt's books was titled North Carolina Is My Home. Kuralt's younger brother Wallace, who died in December 2003, was also well-known in his home state, having been the owner of The Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill for many years. In addition, a portion of land along the Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear Ecosystem, so named for the rivers that flow into the Albemarle, Currituck, and Pamlico Sounds, has been named for Kuralt, honoring his having given as much time to nature and wildlife as to people in his "On the Road" and Sunday Morning stories.
By request in his will, Kuralt was buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. The university uses a Kuralt speech in its television commercials, and it displays many of his awards and a re-creation of his office in its Journalism School. Petie Baird Kuralt, who died in 1999, was buried right next to him.
Accolades
1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
1994: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association
1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism
Posthumous controversy
Two years after his death, Kuralt's decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Shannon while his wife lived in Manhattan and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Shannon asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court. According to court testimony, Kuralt had met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentions Pat Shannon and the building of the park—but not the nature of their relationship together—in his autobiography.
References
External links
Charles Kuralt Collection, 1935–1997 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ralph Grizzle, Remembering Charles Kuralt. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2000. ()
Charles Kuralt's People. Asheville, North Carolina: Kenilworth Media, 2005. A collection of his award-winning Charlotte News columns.
, a CNN obituary
In re Estate of Kuralt, 15 P.3d 931 (2000)
1934 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
21st-century American journalists
60 Minutes correspondents
American television news anchors
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American war correspondents
Burials at Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
CBS News people
Deaths from lupus
Grammy Award winners
Journalists from North Carolina
National Humanities Medal recipients
Peabody Award winners
People with lupus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Writers from New York City
Writers from Wilmington, North Carolina | false | [
"Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rico-born American actress, singer, and dancer. With a career spanning nearly 80 years in the entertainment industry, Moreno is one of a few individuals to have won the four major annual American entertainment awards: an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. She is also one of the few performers who have achieved the \"Triple Crown of Acting\", with individual competitive Academy, Emmy, and Tony awards for acting; she and Helen Hayes are the only two who have achieved both distinctions in their lifetimes. She has won numerous other awards, including various lifetime achievement awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor. On March 28, 2019 Moreno received a Peabody Award.\n\nMajor associations\n\nAcademy Awards\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nBAFTA Awards\n1 nomination\n\nDaytime Emmy Awards\n4 nominations\n\nGolden Globe Awards\n1 win out of 3 nominations\n\nGrammy Awards\n1 win out of 2 nominations \n\nLatin Grammy Awards\n1 win out of 1 nominations\n\nPeabody Award\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nPrimetime Emmy Awards\n2 wins out of 6 nominations\n\nScreen Actors Guild Awards\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nTony Awards\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nOther associations\n\nALMA Awards\n4 wins out of 7 nominations\n\nCableACE Awards\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nCritics' Choice Television Awards\n3 nominations\n\nDrama Desk Awards\n2 nominations\n\nGold Derby Awards\n1 nomination\n\nImagen Foundation Awards\n2 nominations\n\nLaurel Awards\n1 win out of 1 nomination\n\nNAACP Image Awards\n3 nominations\n\nOFTA Awards\n2 wins out of 8 nominations\n\nSatellite Awards\n1 nomination\n\nLondon Film Critics' Circle \n1 nomination\n\nReferences\n\nMoreno, Rita",
"The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and online media. The awards were conceived by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1938 as the radio industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. Programs are recognized in seven categories: news, entertainment, documentaries, children's programming, education, interactive programming, and public service. Peabody Award winners include radio and television stations, networks, online media, producing organizations, and individuals from around the world.\n\nEstablished in 1940 by a committee of the National Association of Broadcasters, the Peabody Award was created to honor excellence in radio broadcasting. It is the oldest major electronic media award in the United States. Final Peabody Award winners are selected unanimously by the program's Board of Jurors.\nReflecting excellence in quality storytelling, rather than popularity or commercial success, Peabody Awards are distributed annually to 30 out of 60 finalists culled from more than 1,000 entries. Because submissions are accepted from a wide variety of sources and styles, deliberations seek \"Excellence On Its Own Terms\".\n\nEach entry is evaluated on the achievement of standards established within its own context. Entries, for which a fee ( for radio) is required, are self-selected by those making submissions.\n\nHistory\nIn 1938, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting. Committee member Lambdin Kay, public-service director for WSB radio in Atlanta, Georgia, at the time, is credited with creating the award, named for businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, who donated the funds that made the awards possible. Fellow WSB employee Lessie Smithgall introduced Lambdin to John E. Drewry, of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, who endorsed the idea. The Peabody Award was established in 1940 with the Grady College of Journalism as its permanent home.\n\nThe Peabody Awards were originally issued only for radio programming, but television awards were introduced in 1948. In the late 1990s additional categories for material distributed via the World Wide Web were added. Materials created solely for theatrical motion picture release are not eligible.\n\nPeabody judging\nThe Peabody Awards judging process is unusually rigorous. Each year, more than 1,000 entries are evaluated by some 30 committees composed of a number of faculty, staff, and students from the University of Georgia and other higher education institutions across the country. Each committee is charged with screening or listening to a small number of entries and delivering written recommendations to the Peabody Board of Jurors, a ~17-member panel of scholars, critics, and media-industry professionals. Board members discuss recommended entries as well as their own selections at intensive preliminary meetings in California and Texas. The Board convenes at the University of Georgia in early April for final screenings and deliberations. Each entrant is judged on its own merit, and only unanimously selected programs receive a Peabody Award. For many years, there was no set number of awards issued. However, in 2016 the program instituted the Peabody 30, representing the best programs out of a field of 60 nominees. Prior to this, the all-time record for Peabody Award recipients in a single year was 46 in 2013.\n\nKey people\n\nGeorge Foster Peabody (1852–1938), namesake of the awards, was a highly successful investment banker who devoted much of his fortune to education and social enterprise. \nLambdin Kay was the awards chairman for The National Association of Broadcasters when he was asked to create a prize to honor the nation's premier radio programs and performances.\nJohn E. Drewry (1902–1983) was the first dean of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He accepted the position of dean when it was created in 1940. That same year he helped Lambdin Kay, general manager of Atlanta's WSB Radio, create the Peabody Awards recognizing excellence in broadcasting.\nDr. Worth McDougald (1926–2007) served as Director of the Peabody Awards program from 1963 until his retirement in 1991.\nBarry Sherman (1952–2000) was the Director of the George Foster Peabody Awards program at the University of Georgia from 1991 until his death in 2000.\nHorace Newcomb held the Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia from 2001 to 2013.\nJeffrey P. Jones succeeded Horace Newcomb in July 2013 as the Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.\n\nAward announcements and ceremonies\nEach spring, the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors announce award recipients for work released during the previous year. Traditionally, the winners' announcements have been made via a simple press release and/or a press conference. An April 2014 segment of CBS This Morning included an announcement of 2013 Peabody winners. In April 2015, the 2014 Peabodys were revealed over an 8-day period, with the entertainment-based recipients revealed on ABC's Good Morning America.\n\nFormal presentation of the Peabody Awards is traditionally held in late May or early June. For many years, the awards were given during a luncheon in New York City. The ceremony moved to a red carpet evening event for the first time on May 31, 2015, with Fred Armisen serving as host. Several famous names have served as Peabody Awards ceremony hosts over the years, among them Walter Cronkite, Lesley Stahl, Jackie Gleason, Jon Stewart, Morley Safer, Craig Ferguson, Larry King, and Ira Glass. From 2014 to 2016, the Peabody Awards aired on a tape-delayed basis on the TV channel Pivot. On June 2, 2017, a television special of the 76th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony was broadcast on both PBS and FUSION networks.\n\nPeabody Awards Archive\nThe Peabody Awards Collection is the flagship of The Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection. The archives are housed in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries on the north campus of The University of Georgia. The mission of the Peabody Archive is to preserve, protect, and provide access to the moving image and sound materials that reflect the collective memory of broadcasting and the history of the state of Georgia and its people. The collection contains nearly every entry for the first major broadcast award given in the United States. Entries began in 1940 for radio and 1948 for television, and at least 1,000 new entries are received every year—programs created by local, national, and international producers. The collection provides a cultural cross-section of television from its infancy to the present day, featuring news, documentary, entertainment, educational, and children's programming. Once judging is complete, all entries are moved to the Main Library for in-depth cataloging, access, and long-term preservation.\n\nIn 2017 the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia (BMA) and WGBH, on behalf of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, were awarded a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to digitize, preserve, and provide access to approximately 4,000 hours of public broadcasting programming nominated for a George Foster Peabody Award between 1941 and 1999. The full collection will eventually comprise 4,000 digitized hours of audio and video recordings from 230 local, state, and regional public broadcasting stations in 46 states as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.\n\nSee also\n\n List of American television awards\n List of Peabody Award winners (1940–1949)\n List of Peabody Award winners (1950–1959)\n List of Peabody Award winners (1960–1969)\n List of Peabody Award winners (1970–1979)\n List of Peabody Award winners (1980–1989)\n List of Peabody Award winners (1990–1999)\n List of Peabody Award winners (2000–2009)\n List of Peabody Award winners (2010–2019)\n List of Peabody Award winners (2020–2029)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nPeabody Awards official website\n\n \n1940 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)\nAmerican journalism awards\nAmerican radio awards\nAmerican television awards\nAwards established in 1940\nBroadcast journalism\nEducational media awards\nPodcasting awards\nUniversity of Georgia\nWeb awards"
]
|
[
"David Simon",
"Journalism"
]
| C_8b553ee814864c8887a6c2c7a22544b2_1 | Did he go to school for journalism? | 1 | Did David Simon go to school for journalism? | David Simon | Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. He spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience. Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it". Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon. In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual." In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and television writer and producer best known for his work on The Wire (2002–08).
He worked for The Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997) with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner (2000).
He was the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner for all five seasons of the HBO television series The Wire (2002–2008). He adapted the non-fiction book Generation Kill into a television mini-series, and served as the show runner for the project. He was selected as one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows and named an Utne Reader visionary in 2011. Simon also created the HBO series Treme with Eric Overmyer, which aired for four seasons. Following Treme, Simon wrote the HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero with journalist William F. Zorzi, a colleague first at The Baltimore Sun and again later on The Wire. Simon and frequent collaborator George Pelecanos reunited to create original series The Deuce. The drama about the New York porn industry in the 1970s and 1980s stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-producer James Franco, and aired from 2017 to 2019. Simon's next series, The Plot Against America, debuted in 2020.
Early life and education
Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (née Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. Simon was raised in a Jewish family, and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. His family roots are in Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and Slovakia (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.
In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege.
Simon graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and wrote for the school newspaper, The Tattler. In 1983, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at college he wrote and was Editor for The Diamondback, and became friends with contemporary David Mills.
Career
Journalism
Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. Simon was hired by the Baltimore Sun for a piece he wrote about Lefty Driesell, who was then the men's basketball coach at the University of Maryland. Driesell had been extremely frustrated that one of his players was suspended from playing for sexual impropriety and called the victim, threatening to destroy her reputation if she did not withdraw her complaint. This was all done while the university administration was listening to the call, but they did nothing. Lefty Driesell was later given a 5-year contract and, in 2018, he was inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame.
Simon spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by The Washington Posts coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience.
Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon.
In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book.
Book
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Simon's leave of absence from The Sun resulted in his first book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The book was based on his experiences shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988. The idea came from a conversation on Christmas Eve 1985 in the unit office, where Det. Bill Lansey told him, "If someone just wrote down what happens in this place for one year, they'd have a goddamn book." Simon approached the police department and the editors of the paper to receive approval. The detectives were initially slow to accept him, but he persevered in an attempt to "seem … like part of the furniture". However, he soon ingratiated himself with the detectives, saying in the closing notes of the book, "I shared with the detectives a year's worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof." During one instance, Simon even assisted with an arrest. Two detectives Simon was riding with pulled their car to a curb to apprehend two suspects, but Detective Dave Brown got his trenchcoat caught in a seat belt when he tried to exit the car. Brown told Simon to assist Detective Terry McLarney himself, and Simon helped apprehend and search one of the suspects.
The book won the 1992 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book. The Associated Press called it "a true-crime classic". The Library Journal also highly recommended it, and Newsday described it as "one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written". Simon credits his time researching the book as altering his writing style and informing later work. He learned to be more patient in research and writing, and said a key lesson was not promoting himself but concentrating on his subjects. Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that Homicide was not traditional journalism. "I felt Homicide the book and The Corner were not traditional journalism in the sense of coming from some artificially omniscient, objective point of view," said Simon. "They're immersed in the respective cultures that they cover in a way that traditional journalism often isn't."
Television
Homicide: Life on the Street
The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.
Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.
Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth-season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth-season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).
Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.
The Corner
In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner. He took a second leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun in 1993 to research the project. Simon became close to one of his subjects, drug addict Gary McCullough, and was devastated by his death while he was writing the project. Simon says that he approached the research with the abstract idea that his subjects may die because of their addictions but it was not possible to fully prepare for the reality. He remains grateful to his subjects saying "This involved people's whole lives, there's no privacy in it. That was an enormous gift which many, many people gave us. Even the most functional were at war with themselves. But they were not foolish people. And they made that choice."
The Corner was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. Simon again returned to his journalism career after finishing the book but felt further changed by his experiences. He said he "was less enamored of the braggadocio, all that big, we're-really-having-an-impact talk" and no longer believed that they were making a difference; he left his job at The Sun within a year for work on NBC's Homicide.
Soon after Homicide concluded Simon co-wrote (with David Mills) and produced The Corner as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO. The show received three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie, for Simon and Mills.
The Wire
Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire. Many of The Wires characters and incidents also came from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. After the fourth season, Simon signed on to produce the fifth and final season of The Wire, which focused on the role of mass media in society.
Again he worked with Ed Burns on creating the show. Originally they set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. During this time Burns had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."
They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot after ordering a further two scripts to see how the series would progress. Carolyn Strauss, the president of HBO entertainment, has said that Simon's argument that the most subversive thing HBO could do was invade the networks' "backyard" of police procedurals helped to persuade them.
The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working-class America through examination of the city ports. The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." For the fourth season Simon again turned to Burns' experience, this time his second career as a Baltimore public school teacher in examining the theme of education. The fifth season looked at the media, as well as continuing themes such as politics from earlier seasons.
Simon was reunited with his The Corner producers Robert F. Colesberry and Nina K. Noble on The Wire. Simon credits Colesberry for achieving the show's realistic visual feel because of his experience as a director. They recruited Homicide star and director Clark Johnson to helm the pilot episode. The completed pilot was given to HBO in November 2001. Johnson returned to direct the second episode when the show was picked up, and would direct the series finale as well, in addition to starring in the fifth season.
Simon approached acclaimed crime fiction authors to write for The Wire. He was recommended the work of George Pelecanos by a colleague while working at the Baltimore Sun because of similarities between their writing. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, attendance at the University of Maryland and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor." Simon did not read Pelecanos initially because of territorial prejudice; Pelecanos is from Washington. Once Simon received further recommendations including one from his wife Laura Lippman he tried Pelecanos' novel The Sweet Forever and changed his mind. He sought out Pelecanos when recruiting writers for The Wire. The two met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos became a regular writer and later a producer for the show's second and third seasons. Simon and Pelecanos collaborated to write the episode "Middle Ground" which received the show's first Emmy nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Pelecanos left the production staff following the third season to focus on his next novel; Simon has commented that he missed having him working on the show full-time but was pleased that he continued to write for them and was a fan of the resultant book The Night Gardener. Similar to Simon's own experience in researching Homicide Pelecanos spent time embedded with the Washington DC homicide unit to research the book.
Crime novelist Dennis Lehane has also written for the series starting with the third season. Lehane has commented that he was impressed by Simon and Burns' ear for authentic street slang.
Eric Overmyer was brought in to fill the role of Pelecanos as a full-time writer producer. He had previously worked with Simon on Homicide where the two became friends. Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing particularly in synthesizing the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads.
Simon and his writing staff were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season. Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-" which received the show's second Emmy nomination, again in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Simon has stated that he finds working with HBO more comfortable than his experiences with NBC on Homicide and that HBO is able to allow greater creative control because it is dependent on subscribers rather than on viewing figures. He has said that he feels unable to return to network television because he felt pressure to compromise storytelling for audience satisfaction.
Generation Kill
Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill for HBO with Ed Burns. They again worked with Nina Noble as a producer. The miniseries is an adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. It relates the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as experienced by 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and their embedded reporter, Evan Wright. Simon and Burns worked with Wright in adapting his book into the series.
Treme
Simon collaborated with Eric Overmyer again on Treme, a project about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans. Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans, and Simon believed his experience would be valuable in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories. Simon also consulted with New Orleans natives Donald Harrison Jr., Kermit Ruffins, and Davis Rogan while developing the series. The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood, and is smaller in scope than The Wire. The series premiered on April 11, 2010, on HBO and ran for four seasons.
Treme is named after the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans that is home to many of the city's musicians. Simon stated that the series would explore beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm. One of the principal characters in the pilot script runs a restaurant. The series was filmed on location and was expected to provide a boost to the New Orleans economy. Simon's casting of the show mirrored that of The Wire in using local actors wherever possible. Wendell Pierce, who had previously played Bunk Moreland on The Wire, stars in the series. Clarke Peters, also of The Wire, is another series regular. Many other stars of The Wire have appeared in Treme, these include Steve Earle, Jim True-Frost, James Ransone, and Anwan Glover.
Show Me a Hero
In 2014, HBO greenlit production for Simon's next project Show Me a Hero, a six-hour miniseries co-written with William F. Zorzi and the episodes directed by Academy Award-winner Paul Haggis. The miniseries is an adaptation of the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin and tells the story of Nick Wasicsko, the youngest big-city mayor in the country who is thrust into racial controversy when a federal court orders to build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of Yonkers, New York. Oscar Isaac stars as Wasicsko and leads a cast, which includes Catherine Keener, Jim Belushi, Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder. The miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015.
The Deuce
The Deuce is a 2017 drama television series set in Times Square, New York focusing on the rise of the porn industry in the 1970s-80s. Created and written by Simon along with frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, the series pilot began shooting in October 2015. It was picked up to series in January 2016. It premiered on September 10, 2017, and is broadcast by HBO in the United States.
The Deuce tells the story of the legalization and ensuing rise of the porn industry in New York beginning in the 1970s and its ongoing rise through the mid-1980s. Themes explored include the rise of HIV, the violence of the drug epidemic and the resulting real estate booms and busts that coincided with the change.
The Plot Against America
An adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, The Plot Against America is an alternate history told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey; as they watch the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, an aviator-hero and xenophobic populist, who becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism. The six-part miniseries premiered on March 16, 2020, on HBO.
Projects in developmentParting the Waters: With Taylor Branch, James McBride, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Eric Overmyer. About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Taylor Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project was to be produced by Oprah Winfrey, but was shelved.The Avenue: A book with William F. Zorzi Jr., on the Baltimore drug epidemic from 1951 to late 1980sThe Good Friday Plot: Miniseries about Abraham Lincoln based upon Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson and American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael W. Kauffman.Capitol Hill: A collaboration with Carl Bernstein set in Capitol Hill, it examines partisanship and the role money plays in influencing national governance. The series was ordered to pilot by HBO in 2015 but has not received a subsequent season order.Legacy of Ashes: On the Central Intelligence Agency, based on the 2007 book Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. The show was taken to the BBC and would have had Anthony Bourdain on the writing staff.The Pogues: Musical project with the help of the late Philip Chevron in development at The Public Theater in New York City, with Laura Lippman and George PelecanosA Dry Run: The Lincolns in Spain: A historical miniseries set during the Spanish Civil War about the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Battalions, which were composed of volunteers from the United States who wanted to help the Spanish Republic overcome fascism. Mark Johnson will be the series producer and Mediapro will be the series' production company.
Writing process
Simon is known for his realistic dialogue and journalistic approach to writing. He says that authenticity is paramount and that he writes not with a general audience in mind but with the opinions of his subjects as his priority. He has described his extensive use of real anecdotes and characters in his writing as "stealing life".
In a talk that Simon gave to a live audience in April 2007 at the Creative Alliance's storytelling series, Simon disclosed that he had started writing for revenge against John Carroll and Bill Marimow, the two most senior editors at The Baltimore Sun when Simon was a reporter at the paper. Simon said he had watched Carroll and Marimow "single-handedly destroy" the newspaper and that he spent over ten years trying to get back at them.
Anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were fucked up, wrong, and that I was the fucking center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.
One of the actions Simon took was to name a character in The Wire after Marimow and make the character "a repellent police-department toady." Carroll left The Baltimore Sun to become editor at the Los Angeles Times and resigned in 2005 after budget cuts were announced. "He stands up like a [bleeping] hero, takes a bullet," said Simon. In 2006 Marimow was diagnosed with prostate cancer, something that Simon said "took the edge off" his grudge. Carroll and Marimow "were fuel for 10 years of my life. ... And now, I got nothing," Simon said.
When asked about these comments, Simon said that he had spoken with "some hyperbole and, I hope, comic effect", adding that his basic viewpoint was: "that simple revenge is both empty and beside the point and that a good story carefully told has to speak to larger themes. You do not tell an ornate, careful story over ten hours of HBO airtime merely to bust on any given soul."
Views on journalism
In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."
While testifying at a 2009 Senate hearing regarding the future of journalism in America, Simon indicted what he saw as poor online journalism, calling the phrase citizen journalist "Orwellian to [his] ears." Simon ended his testimony by declaring, "I don't think anything can be done to save high-end journalism."
Political views
Simon has described himself as a social democrat, broadly supporting the existence of capitalism while opposing "raw, unencumbered capitalism, absent any social framework, absent any sense of community, without regard to the weakest and most vulnerable classes in society", which he described as "a recipe for needless pain, needless human waste, (and) needless tragedy". He has criticized the idea of trickle-down economics.
In 2013, Simon compared the global surveillance disclosures uncovered by Edward Snowden to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to record the numbers dialed from all pay phones. The city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to record the dialed numbers. The placement of the payphone number recorders formed the basis of The Wires first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the surveillance disclosures is a "faux scandal."
During a November 2013 speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, he said that America has become "a horror show" of savage inequality as a result of capitalism run amok, and that "unless we reverse course, the average human being is worthless on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism."
Simon has also spoken out publicly against crime journalist Kevin Deutsch, disputing the portrayal of Baltimore's illegal drug trade in Deutsch's book, Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. Simon has described the book as "a wholesale fabrication."
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Simon praised Bernie Sanders for "rehabilitating and normalizing the term socialist back into American public life", but opposed some attacks against Hillary Clinton which he felt focused on her presumed motives rather than the substance of policies.
Personal life
In 1991, Simon was married to graphic artist Kayle Tucker. They had a son. The marriage ended in divorce.
In 2006, Simon married best-selling Baltimore novelist and former Sun reporter Laura Lippman in a ceremony officiated by John Waters. They have a daughter, who was born in 2010.
Simon's nephew, Jason Simon, is a guitarist and vocalist for the psychedelic rock band Dead Meadow. The band was mentioned in an episode of The Wire.
Simon was the 2012 commencement speaker for the Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the speaker for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduation.
In 2019, Simon joined a host of other writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA after failing to come to an agreement on their "Code of Conduct". Simon's statement to the writers union was widely circulated. He had previously led the rallying cry about the unfair practices of packaging by the major talent agencies.
Works and publications
Commentary
Non-fiction books
Filmography
Producer
Writer
References
Further reading
External links
David Simon's blog.
1960 births
American crime fiction writers
Jewish American journalists
American non-fiction crime writers
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American television producers
American television writers
Anthony Award winners
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Edgar Award winners
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
American male television writers
Maryland Democrats
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Showrunners
The Baltimore Sun people
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Writers from Baltimore
Novelists from Maryland
American male non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
People from Bethesda, Maryland
21st-century American Jews | false | [
"Philip Delves Broughton is a British journalist and author known for his business journalism, such as in his books Ahead of the Curve (2008), and The Art of the Sale (2012).\n\nBiography\nHe has written four books. He was born in Dacca, Bangladesh, where his father worked as a Church of England missionary and his mother spent four years after leaving Burma with her family following the 1962 Burmese coup d'état. He grew up in England, received his BA in Classics from Oxford University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.\n\nJournalism\nFrom 1994 to 2004 he was a newspaper journalist. From 1998 to 2002, he was New York City correspondent for The Daily Telegraph of London, and covered the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. From 2002 to 2004 he was the Telegraph's Paris Bureau Chief. He left daily journalism in 2004 to go to Harvard.\n\nSubsequently he has been a columnist for The Financial Times and The Evening Standard and writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator and The Oldie\n\nBooks\nAhead of the Curve 2008.\nThe Art of the Sale 2012.\nCharlie Whistler's Omnium Gatherum 2016 (Children's Book).\nHow to Think Like an Entrepreneur 2016\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nPersonal site – https://philipdelvesbroughton.com\nTwitter – https://twitter.com/delvesbroughton\n\nBritish journalists\nHarvard Business School alumni\nAlumni of the University of Oxford\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Sandi Čolnik, born in 1937 as Alexander Ludovik Čolnik, was a Slovene journalist, TV presenter, writer and newspaper editor. He was born in Maribor in 1938 and died in Ljubljana in 2017.\n\nČolnik started his career as a radio host on Radio Maribor. He decided to go Ljubljana to study the law, but finally change his mind and goes for journalism after working as a remplacent on RTV Slovenia.\n\nHe devoted a lot of his career to cultural journalism and was appreciated for his interviews. He was already known in the sixties for the emission TV pošta, and in the seventies for his work on Monitor, a program that aired in the entirety of Yugoslavia. He also worked as a host for music festivals and gala nights. He decided to retire in 2000.\n\nHe received the Jurčič prize in 1997. The prize awards excellence in journalism and the liberty of journalism and redaction in Slovenia.\n\nHe was married with Dr. Monika Brumen and they had two daughters.\n\nČolnik died in 2017, at the age 80. The Slovenian public remembers him for his velvet voice and his gift for journalism.\n\nReferences \n\n1937 births\n2017 deaths\nSlovenian journalists\nSlovenian radio personalities\nSlovenian television personalities\nWriters from Maribor"
]
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[
"David Simon",
"Journalism",
"Did he go to school for journalism?",
"I don't know."
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| C_8b553ee814864c8887a6c2c7a22544b2_1 | What was his first experience with journalism? | 2 | What was David Simon's first experience with journalism? | David Simon | Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. He spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience. Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it". Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon. In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual." In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book. CANNOTANSWER | Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. | David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and television writer and producer best known for his work on The Wire (2002–08).
He worked for The Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997) with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner (2000).
He was the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner for all five seasons of the HBO television series The Wire (2002–2008). He adapted the non-fiction book Generation Kill into a television mini-series, and served as the show runner for the project. He was selected as one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows and named an Utne Reader visionary in 2011. Simon also created the HBO series Treme with Eric Overmyer, which aired for four seasons. Following Treme, Simon wrote the HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero with journalist William F. Zorzi, a colleague first at The Baltimore Sun and again later on The Wire. Simon and frequent collaborator George Pelecanos reunited to create original series The Deuce. The drama about the New York porn industry in the 1970s and 1980s stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-producer James Franco, and aired from 2017 to 2019. Simon's next series, The Plot Against America, debuted in 2020.
Early life and education
Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (née Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. Simon was raised in a Jewish family, and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. His family roots are in Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and Slovakia (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.
In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege.
Simon graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and wrote for the school newspaper, The Tattler. In 1983, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at college he wrote and was Editor for The Diamondback, and became friends with contemporary David Mills.
Career
Journalism
Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. Simon was hired by the Baltimore Sun for a piece he wrote about Lefty Driesell, who was then the men's basketball coach at the University of Maryland. Driesell had been extremely frustrated that one of his players was suspended from playing for sexual impropriety and called the victim, threatening to destroy her reputation if she did not withdraw her complaint. This was all done while the university administration was listening to the call, but they did nothing. Lefty Driesell was later given a 5-year contract and, in 2018, he was inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame.
Simon spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by The Washington Posts coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience.
Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon.
In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book.
Book
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Simon's leave of absence from The Sun resulted in his first book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The book was based on his experiences shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988. The idea came from a conversation on Christmas Eve 1985 in the unit office, where Det. Bill Lansey told him, "If someone just wrote down what happens in this place for one year, they'd have a goddamn book." Simon approached the police department and the editors of the paper to receive approval. The detectives were initially slow to accept him, but he persevered in an attempt to "seem … like part of the furniture". However, he soon ingratiated himself with the detectives, saying in the closing notes of the book, "I shared with the detectives a year's worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof." During one instance, Simon even assisted with an arrest. Two detectives Simon was riding with pulled their car to a curb to apprehend two suspects, but Detective Dave Brown got his trenchcoat caught in a seat belt when he tried to exit the car. Brown told Simon to assist Detective Terry McLarney himself, and Simon helped apprehend and search one of the suspects.
The book won the 1992 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book. The Associated Press called it "a true-crime classic". The Library Journal also highly recommended it, and Newsday described it as "one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written". Simon credits his time researching the book as altering his writing style and informing later work. He learned to be more patient in research and writing, and said a key lesson was not promoting himself but concentrating on his subjects. Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that Homicide was not traditional journalism. "I felt Homicide the book and The Corner were not traditional journalism in the sense of coming from some artificially omniscient, objective point of view," said Simon. "They're immersed in the respective cultures that they cover in a way that traditional journalism often isn't."
Television
Homicide: Life on the Street
The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.
Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.
Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth-season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth-season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).
Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.
The Corner
In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner. He took a second leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun in 1993 to research the project. Simon became close to one of his subjects, drug addict Gary McCullough, and was devastated by his death while he was writing the project. Simon says that he approached the research with the abstract idea that his subjects may die because of their addictions but it was not possible to fully prepare for the reality. He remains grateful to his subjects saying "This involved people's whole lives, there's no privacy in it. That was an enormous gift which many, many people gave us. Even the most functional were at war with themselves. But they were not foolish people. And they made that choice."
The Corner was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. Simon again returned to his journalism career after finishing the book but felt further changed by his experiences. He said he "was less enamored of the braggadocio, all that big, we're-really-having-an-impact talk" and no longer believed that they were making a difference; he left his job at The Sun within a year for work on NBC's Homicide.
Soon after Homicide concluded Simon co-wrote (with David Mills) and produced The Corner as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO. The show received three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie, for Simon and Mills.
The Wire
Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire. Many of The Wires characters and incidents also came from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. After the fourth season, Simon signed on to produce the fifth and final season of The Wire, which focused on the role of mass media in society.
Again he worked with Ed Burns on creating the show. Originally they set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. During this time Burns had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."
They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot after ordering a further two scripts to see how the series would progress. Carolyn Strauss, the president of HBO entertainment, has said that Simon's argument that the most subversive thing HBO could do was invade the networks' "backyard" of police procedurals helped to persuade them.
The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working-class America through examination of the city ports. The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." For the fourth season Simon again turned to Burns' experience, this time his second career as a Baltimore public school teacher in examining the theme of education. The fifth season looked at the media, as well as continuing themes such as politics from earlier seasons.
Simon was reunited with his The Corner producers Robert F. Colesberry and Nina K. Noble on The Wire. Simon credits Colesberry for achieving the show's realistic visual feel because of his experience as a director. They recruited Homicide star and director Clark Johnson to helm the pilot episode. The completed pilot was given to HBO in November 2001. Johnson returned to direct the second episode when the show was picked up, and would direct the series finale as well, in addition to starring in the fifth season.
Simon approached acclaimed crime fiction authors to write for The Wire. He was recommended the work of George Pelecanos by a colleague while working at the Baltimore Sun because of similarities between their writing. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, attendance at the University of Maryland and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor." Simon did not read Pelecanos initially because of territorial prejudice; Pelecanos is from Washington. Once Simon received further recommendations including one from his wife Laura Lippman he tried Pelecanos' novel The Sweet Forever and changed his mind. He sought out Pelecanos when recruiting writers for The Wire. The two met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos became a regular writer and later a producer for the show's second and third seasons. Simon and Pelecanos collaborated to write the episode "Middle Ground" which received the show's first Emmy nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Pelecanos left the production staff following the third season to focus on his next novel; Simon has commented that he missed having him working on the show full-time but was pleased that he continued to write for them and was a fan of the resultant book The Night Gardener. Similar to Simon's own experience in researching Homicide Pelecanos spent time embedded with the Washington DC homicide unit to research the book.
Crime novelist Dennis Lehane has also written for the series starting with the third season. Lehane has commented that he was impressed by Simon and Burns' ear for authentic street slang.
Eric Overmyer was brought in to fill the role of Pelecanos as a full-time writer producer. He had previously worked with Simon on Homicide where the two became friends. Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing particularly in synthesizing the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads.
Simon and his writing staff were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season. Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-" which received the show's second Emmy nomination, again in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Simon has stated that he finds working with HBO more comfortable than his experiences with NBC on Homicide and that HBO is able to allow greater creative control because it is dependent on subscribers rather than on viewing figures. He has said that he feels unable to return to network television because he felt pressure to compromise storytelling for audience satisfaction.
Generation Kill
Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill for HBO with Ed Burns. They again worked with Nina Noble as a producer. The miniseries is an adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. It relates the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as experienced by 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and their embedded reporter, Evan Wright. Simon and Burns worked with Wright in adapting his book into the series.
Treme
Simon collaborated with Eric Overmyer again on Treme, a project about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans. Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans, and Simon believed his experience would be valuable in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories. Simon also consulted with New Orleans natives Donald Harrison Jr., Kermit Ruffins, and Davis Rogan while developing the series. The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood, and is smaller in scope than The Wire. The series premiered on April 11, 2010, on HBO and ran for four seasons.
Treme is named after the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans that is home to many of the city's musicians. Simon stated that the series would explore beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm. One of the principal characters in the pilot script runs a restaurant. The series was filmed on location and was expected to provide a boost to the New Orleans economy. Simon's casting of the show mirrored that of The Wire in using local actors wherever possible. Wendell Pierce, who had previously played Bunk Moreland on The Wire, stars in the series. Clarke Peters, also of The Wire, is another series regular. Many other stars of The Wire have appeared in Treme, these include Steve Earle, Jim True-Frost, James Ransone, and Anwan Glover.
Show Me a Hero
In 2014, HBO greenlit production for Simon's next project Show Me a Hero, a six-hour miniseries co-written with William F. Zorzi and the episodes directed by Academy Award-winner Paul Haggis. The miniseries is an adaptation of the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin and tells the story of Nick Wasicsko, the youngest big-city mayor in the country who is thrust into racial controversy when a federal court orders to build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of Yonkers, New York. Oscar Isaac stars as Wasicsko and leads a cast, which includes Catherine Keener, Jim Belushi, Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder. The miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015.
The Deuce
The Deuce is a 2017 drama television series set in Times Square, New York focusing on the rise of the porn industry in the 1970s-80s. Created and written by Simon along with frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, the series pilot began shooting in October 2015. It was picked up to series in January 2016. It premiered on September 10, 2017, and is broadcast by HBO in the United States.
The Deuce tells the story of the legalization and ensuing rise of the porn industry in New York beginning in the 1970s and its ongoing rise through the mid-1980s. Themes explored include the rise of HIV, the violence of the drug epidemic and the resulting real estate booms and busts that coincided with the change.
The Plot Against America
An adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, The Plot Against America is an alternate history told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey; as they watch the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, an aviator-hero and xenophobic populist, who becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism. The six-part miniseries premiered on March 16, 2020, on HBO.
Projects in developmentParting the Waters: With Taylor Branch, James McBride, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Eric Overmyer. About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Taylor Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project was to be produced by Oprah Winfrey, but was shelved.The Avenue: A book with William F. Zorzi Jr., on the Baltimore drug epidemic from 1951 to late 1980sThe Good Friday Plot: Miniseries about Abraham Lincoln based upon Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson and American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael W. Kauffman.Capitol Hill: A collaboration with Carl Bernstein set in Capitol Hill, it examines partisanship and the role money plays in influencing national governance. The series was ordered to pilot by HBO in 2015 but has not received a subsequent season order.Legacy of Ashes: On the Central Intelligence Agency, based on the 2007 book Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. The show was taken to the BBC and would have had Anthony Bourdain on the writing staff.The Pogues: Musical project with the help of the late Philip Chevron in development at The Public Theater in New York City, with Laura Lippman and George PelecanosA Dry Run: The Lincolns in Spain: A historical miniseries set during the Spanish Civil War about the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Battalions, which were composed of volunteers from the United States who wanted to help the Spanish Republic overcome fascism. Mark Johnson will be the series producer and Mediapro will be the series' production company.
Writing process
Simon is known for his realistic dialogue and journalistic approach to writing. He says that authenticity is paramount and that he writes not with a general audience in mind but with the opinions of his subjects as his priority. He has described his extensive use of real anecdotes and characters in his writing as "stealing life".
In a talk that Simon gave to a live audience in April 2007 at the Creative Alliance's storytelling series, Simon disclosed that he had started writing for revenge against John Carroll and Bill Marimow, the two most senior editors at The Baltimore Sun when Simon was a reporter at the paper. Simon said he had watched Carroll and Marimow "single-handedly destroy" the newspaper and that he spent over ten years trying to get back at them.
Anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were fucked up, wrong, and that I was the fucking center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.
One of the actions Simon took was to name a character in The Wire after Marimow and make the character "a repellent police-department toady." Carroll left The Baltimore Sun to become editor at the Los Angeles Times and resigned in 2005 after budget cuts were announced. "He stands up like a [bleeping] hero, takes a bullet," said Simon. In 2006 Marimow was diagnosed with prostate cancer, something that Simon said "took the edge off" his grudge. Carroll and Marimow "were fuel for 10 years of my life. ... And now, I got nothing," Simon said.
When asked about these comments, Simon said that he had spoken with "some hyperbole and, I hope, comic effect", adding that his basic viewpoint was: "that simple revenge is both empty and beside the point and that a good story carefully told has to speak to larger themes. You do not tell an ornate, careful story over ten hours of HBO airtime merely to bust on any given soul."
Views on journalism
In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."
While testifying at a 2009 Senate hearing regarding the future of journalism in America, Simon indicted what he saw as poor online journalism, calling the phrase citizen journalist "Orwellian to [his] ears." Simon ended his testimony by declaring, "I don't think anything can be done to save high-end journalism."
Political views
Simon has described himself as a social democrat, broadly supporting the existence of capitalism while opposing "raw, unencumbered capitalism, absent any social framework, absent any sense of community, without regard to the weakest and most vulnerable classes in society", which he described as "a recipe for needless pain, needless human waste, (and) needless tragedy". He has criticized the idea of trickle-down economics.
In 2013, Simon compared the global surveillance disclosures uncovered by Edward Snowden to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to record the numbers dialed from all pay phones. The city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to record the dialed numbers. The placement of the payphone number recorders formed the basis of The Wires first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the surveillance disclosures is a "faux scandal."
During a November 2013 speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, he said that America has become "a horror show" of savage inequality as a result of capitalism run amok, and that "unless we reverse course, the average human being is worthless on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism."
Simon has also spoken out publicly against crime journalist Kevin Deutsch, disputing the portrayal of Baltimore's illegal drug trade in Deutsch's book, Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. Simon has described the book as "a wholesale fabrication."
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Simon praised Bernie Sanders for "rehabilitating and normalizing the term socialist back into American public life", but opposed some attacks against Hillary Clinton which he felt focused on her presumed motives rather than the substance of policies.
Personal life
In 1991, Simon was married to graphic artist Kayle Tucker. They had a son. The marriage ended in divorce.
In 2006, Simon married best-selling Baltimore novelist and former Sun reporter Laura Lippman in a ceremony officiated by John Waters. They have a daughter, who was born in 2010.
Simon's nephew, Jason Simon, is a guitarist and vocalist for the psychedelic rock band Dead Meadow. The band was mentioned in an episode of The Wire.
Simon was the 2012 commencement speaker for the Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the speaker for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduation.
In 2019, Simon joined a host of other writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA after failing to come to an agreement on their "Code of Conduct". Simon's statement to the writers union was widely circulated. He had previously led the rallying cry about the unfair practices of packaging by the major talent agencies.
Works and publications
Commentary
Non-fiction books
Filmography
Producer
Writer
References
Further reading
External links
David Simon's blog.
1960 births
American crime fiction writers
Jewish American journalists
American non-fiction crime writers
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American television producers
American television writers
Anthony Award winners
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Edgar Award winners
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
American male television writers
Maryland Democrats
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Showrunners
The Baltimore Sun people
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Writers from Baltimore
Novelists from Maryland
American male non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
People from Bethesda, Maryland
21st-century American Jews | true | [
"John Kaplan is an American photographer who won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography \"for his photographs depicting the diverse lifestyles of seven 21-year-olds across the United States\".\n\nKaplan attended Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware, graduating in 1977. Kaplan graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 1982 and later graduated with a master's degree in journalism from the school in 1998. In 1999 he became a faculty member at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.\n\nIn April 2008 Kaplan was named a Fulbright Scholar. The same year, Kaplan was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a condition which is in remission as of 2011 after treatment. Kaplan has reported his experience with cancer in an award-winning documentary film entitled Not As I Pictured.\n\nReferences and notes\n\nAmerican photographers\nAmerican documentary filmmakers\nPulitzer Prize for Feature Photography winners\nUniversity of Florida faculty\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Poppius journalistskola is Scandinavia's oldest journalism school. The school was founded in 1947 in Stockholm by the journalist and editor Set Poppius who had a long working life of experience in the field of journalism.\n\nThe school was founded during a period when the earlier volunteer system had stopped working and before state funded journalism schools started in the early 1960s. It was for a long time the only private journalism school in the entire Nordic region; only Germany and the USA at that time had similar private schools. Although there was a lack of educated journalists there was initial hesitation to the Poppius initiative, due to a belief that journalism could only be learnt through experience, not taught.\n\nSet Poppius started the school with his wife Ebba. Set was the school manager and teacher while his wife was responsible for the school's finances. The school soon developed a good reputation amongst journalists, and many praised the school such as Majgull Axelsson, Caroline Älvebrink Calais, Beppe Wolgers, Svante Foerster, Carl Otto Werkelid, Malou von Sivers, Mona Krantz, Hans Nestius, Mats Lundegård, Sten Hedman, Magdalena Ribbing, Kristin Kaspersen, Fredrik Lindström and Carolina Neurath.\n\nSet Poppius died in 1972 and Ebba Poppius ran the school for a few more years. The study school Vuxenskolan operated the school between 1974 and 1986. The school today is run by a non profit foundation and is financed solely by student tuition fees.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Poppius, Official website\n\nSchools in Sweden\nEducational institutions established in 1947\n1947 establishments in Sweden\nJournalism schools in Europe\nSwedish journalism organizations"
]
|
[
"David Simon",
"Journalism",
"Did he go to school for journalism?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first experience with journalism?",
"Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995."
]
| C_8b553ee814864c8887a6c2c7a22544b2_1 | What was his next job? | 3 | What was David Simon's next job after working as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun? | David Simon | Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. He spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience. Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it". Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon. In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual." In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book. CANNOTANSWER | Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike | David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and television writer and producer best known for his work on The Wire (2002–08).
He worked for The Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997) with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner (2000).
He was the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner for all five seasons of the HBO television series The Wire (2002–2008). He adapted the non-fiction book Generation Kill into a television mini-series, and served as the show runner for the project. He was selected as one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows and named an Utne Reader visionary in 2011. Simon also created the HBO series Treme with Eric Overmyer, which aired for four seasons. Following Treme, Simon wrote the HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero with journalist William F. Zorzi, a colleague first at The Baltimore Sun and again later on The Wire. Simon and frequent collaborator George Pelecanos reunited to create original series The Deuce. The drama about the New York porn industry in the 1970s and 1980s stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-producer James Franco, and aired from 2017 to 2019. Simon's next series, The Plot Against America, debuted in 2020.
Early life and education
Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (née Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. Simon was raised in a Jewish family, and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. His family roots are in Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and Slovakia (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.
In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege.
Simon graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and wrote for the school newspaper, The Tattler. In 1983, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at college he wrote and was Editor for The Diamondback, and became friends with contemporary David Mills.
Career
Journalism
Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. Simon was hired by the Baltimore Sun for a piece he wrote about Lefty Driesell, who was then the men's basketball coach at the University of Maryland. Driesell had been extremely frustrated that one of his players was suspended from playing for sexual impropriety and called the victim, threatening to destroy her reputation if she did not withdraw her complaint. This was all done while the university administration was listening to the call, but they did nothing. Lefty Driesell was later given a 5-year contract and, in 2018, he was inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame.
Simon spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by The Washington Posts coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience.
Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon.
In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book.
Book
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Simon's leave of absence from The Sun resulted in his first book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The book was based on his experiences shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988. The idea came from a conversation on Christmas Eve 1985 in the unit office, where Det. Bill Lansey told him, "If someone just wrote down what happens in this place for one year, they'd have a goddamn book." Simon approached the police department and the editors of the paper to receive approval. The detectives were initially slow to accept him, but he persevered in an attempt to "seem … like part of the furniture". However, he soon ingratiated himself with the detectives, saying in the closing notes of the book, "I shared with the detectives a year's worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof." During one instance, Simon even assisted with an arrest. Two detectives Simon was riding with pulled their car to a curb to apprehend two suspects, but Detective Dave Brown got his trenchcoat caught in a seat belt when he tried to exit the car. Brown told Simon to assist Detective Terry McLarney himself, and Simon helped apprehend and search one of the suspects.
The book won the 1992 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book. The Associated Press called it "a true-crime classic". The Library Journal also highly recommended it, and Newsday described it as "one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written". Simon credits his time researching the book as altering his writing style and informing later work. He learned to be more patient in research and writing, and said a key lesson was not promoting himself but concentrating on his subjects. Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that Homicide was not traditional journalism. "I felt Homicide the book and The Corner were not traditional journalism in the sense of coming from some artificially omniscient, objective point of view," said Simon. "They're immersed in the respective cultures that they cover in a way that traditional journalism often isn't."
Television
Homicide: Life on the Street
The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.
Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.
Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth-season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth-season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).
Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.
The Corner
In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner. He took a second leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun in 1993 to research the project. Simon became close to one of his subjects, drug addict Gary McCullough, and was devastated by his death while he was writing the project. Simon says that he approached the research with the abstract idea that his subjects may die because of their addictions but it was not possible to fully prepare for the reality. He remains grateful to his subjects saying "This involved people's whole lives, there's no privacy in it. That was an enormous gift which many, many people gave us. Even the most functional were at war with themselves. But they were not foolish people. And they made that choice."
The Corner was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. Simon again returned to his journalism career after finishing the book but felt further changed by his experiences. He said he "was less enamored of the braggadocio, all that big, we're-really-having-an-impact talk" and no longer believed that they were making a difference; he left his job at The Sun within a year for work on NBC's Homicide.
Soon after Homicide concluded Simon co-wrote (with David Mills) and produced The Corner as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO. The show received three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie, for Simon and Mills.
The Wire
Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire. Many of The Wires characters and incidents also came from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. After the fourth season, Simon signed on to produce the fifth and final season of The Wire, which focused on the role of mass media in society.
Again he worked with Ed Burns on creating the show. Originally they set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. During this time Burns had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."
They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot after ordering a further two scripts to see how the series would progress. Carolyn Strauss, the president of HBO entertainment, has said that Simon's argument that the most subversive thing HBO could do was invade the networks' "backyard" of police procedurals helped to persuade them.
The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working-class America through examination of the city ports. The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." For the fourth season Simon again turned to Burns' experience, this time his second career as a Baltimore public school teacher in examining the theme of education. The fifth season looked at the media, as well as continuing themes such as politics from earlier seasons.
Simon was reunited with his The Corner producers Robert F. Colesberry and Nina K. Noble on The Wire. Simon credits Colesberry for achieving the show's realistic visual feel because of his experience as a director. They recruited Homicide star and director Clark Johnson to helm the pilot episode. The completed pilot was given to HBO in November 2001. Johnson returned to direct the second episode when the show was picked up, and would direct the series finale as well, in addition to starring in the fifth season.
Simon approached acclaimed crime fiction authors to write for The Wire. He was recommended the work of George Pelecanos by a colleague while working at the Baltimore Sun because of similarities between their writing. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, attendance at the University of Maryland and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor." Simon did not read Pelecanos initially because of territorial prejudice; Pelecanos is from Washington. Once Simon received further recommendations including one from his wife Laura Lippman he tried Pelecanos' novel The Sweet Forever and changed his mind. He sought out Pelecanos when recruiting writers for The Wire. The two met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos became a regular writer and later a producer for the show's second and third seasons. Simon and Pelecanos collaborated to write the episode "Middle Ground" which received the show's first Emmy nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Pelecanos left the production staff following the third season to focus on his next novel; Simon has commented that he missed having him working on the show full-time but was pleased that he continued to write for them and was a fan of the resultant book The Night Gardener. Similar to Simon's own experience in researching Homicide Pelecanos spent time embedded with the Washington DC homicide unit to research the book.
Crime novelist Dennis Lehane has also written for the series starting with the third season. Lehane has commented that he was impressed by Simon and Burns' ear for authentic street slang.
Eric Overmyer was brought in to fill the role of Pelecanos as a full-time writer producer. He had previously worked with Simon on Homicide where the two became friends. Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing particularly in synthesizing the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads.
Simon and his writing staff were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season. Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-" which received the show's second Emmy nomination, again in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Simon has stated that he finds working with HBO more comfortable than his experiences with NBC on Homicide and that HBO is able to allow greater creative control because it is dependent on subscribers rather than on viewing figures. He has said that he feels unable to return to network television because he felt pressure to compromise storytelling for audience satisfaction.
Generation Kill
Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill for HBO with Ed Burns. They again worked with Nina Noble as a producer. The miniseries is an adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. It relates the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as experienced by 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and their embedded reporter, Evan Wright. Simon and Burns worked with Wright in adapting his book into the series.
Treme
Simon collaborated with Eric Overmyer again on Treme, a project about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans. Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans, and Simon believed his experience would be valuable in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories. Simon also consulted with New Orleans natives Donald Harrison Jr., Kermit Ruffins, and Davis Rogan while developing the series. The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood, and is smaller in scope than The Wire. The series premiered on April 11, 2010, on HBO and ran for four seasons.
Treme is named after the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans that is home to many of the city's musicians. Simon stated that the series would explore beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm. One of the principal characters in the pilot script runs a restaurant. The series was filmed on location and was expected to provide a boost to the New Orleans economy. Simon's casting of the show mirrored that of The Wire in using local actors wherever possible. Wendell Pierce, who had previously played Bunk Moreland on The Wire, stars in the series. Clarke Peters, also of The Wire, is another series regular. Many other stars of The Wire have appeared in Treme, these include Steve Earle, Jim True-Frost, James Ransone, and Anwan Glover.
Show Me a Hero
In 2014, HBO greenlit production for Simon's next project Show Me a Hero, a six-hour miniseries co-written with William F. Zorzi and the episodes directed by Academy Award-winner Paul Haggis. The miniseries is an adaptation of the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin and tells the story of Nick Wasicsko, the youngest big-city mayor in the country who is thrust into racial controversy when a federal court orders to build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of Yonkers, New York. Oscar Isaac stars as Wasicsko and leads a cast, which includes Catherine Keener, Jim Belushi, Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder. The miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015.
The Deuce
The Deuce is a 2017 drama television series set in Times Square, New York focusing on the rise of the porn industry in the 1970s-80s. Created and written by Simon along with frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, the series pilot began shooting in October 2015. It was picked up to series in January 2016. It premiered on September 10, 2017, and is broadcast by HBO in the United States.
The Deuce tells the story of the legalization and ensuing rise of the porn industry in New York beginning in the 1970s and its ongoing rise through the mid-1980s. Themes explored include the rise of HIV, the violence of the drug epidemic and the resulting real estate booms and busts that coincided with the change.
The Plot Against America
An adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, The Plot Against America is an alternate history told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey; as they watch the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, an aviator-hero and xenophobic populist, who becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism. The six-part miniseries premiered on March 16, 2020, on HBO.
Projects in developmentParting the Waters: With Taylor Branch, James McBride, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Eric Overmyer. About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Taylor Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project was to be produced by Oprah Winfrey, but was shelved.The Avenue: A book with William F. Zorzi Jr., on the Baltimore drug epidemic from 1951 to late 1980sThe Good Friday Plot: Miniseries about Abraham Lincoln based upon Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson and American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael W. Kauffman.Capitol Hill: A collaboration with Carl Bernstein set in Capitol Hill, it examines partisanship and the role money plays in influencing national governance. The series was ordered to pilot by HBO in 2015 but has not received a subsequent season order.Legacy of Ashes: On the Central Intelligence Agency, based on the 2007 book Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. The show was taken to the BBC and would have had Anthony Bourdain on the writing staff.The Pogues: Musical project with the help of the late Philip Chevron in development at The Public Theater in New York City, with Laura Lippman and George PelecanosA Dry Run: The Lincolns in Spain: A historical miniseries set during the Spanish Civil War about the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Battalions, which were composed of volunteers from the United States who wanted to help the Spanish Republic overcome fascism. Mark Johnson will be the series producer and Mediapro will be the series' production company.
Writing process
Simon is known for his realistic dialogue and journalistic approach to writing. He says that authenticity is paramount and that he writes not with a general audience in mind but with the opinions of his subjects as his priority. He has described his extensive use of real anecdotes and characters in his writing as "stealing life".
In a talk that Simon gave to a live audience in April 2007 at the Creative Alliance's storytelling series, Simon disclosed that he had started writing for revenge against John Carroll and Bill Marimow, the two most senior editors at The Baltimore Sun when Simon was a reporter at the paper. Simon said he had watched Carroll and Marimow "single-handedly destroy" the newspaper and that he spent over ten years trying to get back at them.
Anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were fucked up, wrong, and that I was the fucking center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.
One of the actions Simon took was to name a character in The Wire after Marimow and make the character "a repellent police-department toady." Carroll left The Baltimore Sun to become editor at the Los Angeles Times and resigned in 2005 after budget cuts were announced. "He stands up like a [bleeping] hero, takes a bullet," said Simon. In 2006 Marimow was diagnosed with prostate cancer, something that Simon said "took the edge off" his grudge. Carroll and Marimow "were fuel for 10 years of my life. ... And now, I got nothing," Simon said.
When asked about these comments, Simon said that he had spoken with "some hyperbole and, I hope, comic effect", adding that his basic viewpoint was: "that simple revenge is both empty and beside the point and that a good story carefully told has to speak to larger themes. You do not tell an ornate, careful story over ten hours of HBO airtime merely to bust on any given soul."
Views on journalism
In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."
While testifying at a 2009 Senate hearing regarding the future of journalism in America, Simon indicted what he saw as poor online journalism, calling the phrase citizen journalist "Orwellian to [his] ears." Simon ended his testimony by declaring, "I don't think anything can be done to save high-end journalism."
Political views
Simon has described himself as a social democrat, broadly supporting the existence of capitalism while opposing "raw, unencumbered capitalism, absent any social framework, absent any sense of community, without regard to the weakest and most vulnerable classes in society", which he described as "a recipe for needless pain, needless human waste, (and) needless tragedy". He has criticized the idea of trickle-down economics.
In 2013, Simon compared the global surveillance disclosures uncovered by Edward Snowden to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to record the numbers dialed from all pay phones. The city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to record the dialed numbers. The placement of the payphone number recorders formed the basis of The Wires first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the surveillance disclosures is a "faux scandal."
During a November 2013 speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, he said that America has become "a horror show" of savage inequality as a result of capitalism run amok, and that "unless we reverse course, the average human being is worthless on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism."
Simon has also spoken out publicly against crime journalist Kevin Deutsch, disputing the portrayal of Baltimore's illegal drug trade in Deutsch's book, Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. Simon has described the book as "a wholesale fabrication."
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Simon praised Bernie Sanders for "rehabilitating and normalizing the term socialist back into American public life", but opposed some attacks against Hillary Clinton which he felt focused on her presumed motives rather than the substance of policies.
Personal life
In 1991, Simon was married to graphic artist Kayle Tucker. They had a son. The marriage ended in divorce.
In 2006, Simon married best-selling Baltimore novelist and former Sun reporter Laura Lippman in a ceremony officiated by John Waters. They have a daughter, who was born in 2010.
Simon's nephew, Jason Simon, is a guitarist and vocalist for the psychedelic rock band Dead Meadow. The band was mentioned in an episode of The Wire.
Simon was the 2012 commencement speaker for the Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the speaker for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduation.
In 2019, Simon joined a host of other writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA after failing to come to an agreement on their "Code of Conduct". Simon's statement to the writers union was widely circulated. He had previously led the rallying cry about the unfair practices of packaging by the major talent agencies.
Works and publications
Commentary
Non-fiction books
Filmography
Producer
Writer
References
Further reading
External links
David Simon's blog.
1960 births
American crime fiction writers
Jewish American journalists
American non-fiction crime writers
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American television producers
American television writers
Anthony Award winners
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Edgar Award winners
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
American male television writers
Maryland Democrats
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Showrunners
The Baltimore Sun people
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Writers from Baltimore
Novelists from Maryland
American male non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
People from Bethesda, Maryland
21st-century American Jews | true | [
"Bildad ( Bildaḏ), the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1 - 25:2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia, or a resident of the district. In speaking with Job, his intent was consolation, but he became an accuser, asking Job what he has done to deserve God's wrath.\n\nSpeeches\nThe three speeches of Bildad are contained in Job 8, Job 18 and Job 25. In substance, they were largely an echo of what had been maintained by Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job's friends to speak, but charged with somewhat increased vehemence because he deemed Job's words so impious and wrathful. Bildad was the first to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness, albeit indirectly, by accusing his children (who were destroyed, Job 1:19) of sin to warrant their punishment (Job 8:4). His brief third speech, just five verses in length, marked the silencing of the friends.\n\nSee also \nEliphaz\nZophar\n Elihu\n Bildad is also the name of one of the owners of the Pequod in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nHebrew Bible people\nBook of Job",
"Mark Knoller is a former correspondent with CBS best known for his reporting on the White House. He has covered every American president since Gerald Ford, and started gathering statistics on the presidents' daily activities in 1996.\n\nEarly life \nKnoller is originally from Brooklyn, NY and graduated from New York University.\n\nCareer\nOn May 28, 2020, it was reported that CBS had laid off Knoller. He tweeted that day that he was still on the job and was waiting to see what he would do next. The layoff was greeted by a tremendous outpouring of support for Knoller from all sides of the political divide.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nLiving people\nCBS News people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
]
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"Journalism",
"Did he go to school for journalism?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first experience with journalism?",
"Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995.",
"What was his next job?",
"Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike"
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| C_8b553ee814864c8887a6c2c7a22544b2_1 | What was his next journalism experience? | 4 | What was David Simon's next journalism experience after working as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun? | David Simon | Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. He spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience. Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it". Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon. In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual." In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book. CANNOTANSWER | Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. | David Judah Simon (born February 9, 1960) is an American author, journalist, and television writer and producer best known for his work on The Wire (2002–08).
He worked for The Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997) with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner (2000).
He was the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner for all five seasons of the HBO television series The Wire (2002–2008). He adapted the non-fiction book Generation Kill into a television mini-series, and served as the show runner for the project. He was selected as one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows and named an Utne Reader visionary in 2011. Simon also created the HBO series Treme with Eric Overmyer, which aired for four seasons. Following Treme, Simon wrote the HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero with journalist William F. Zorzi, a colleague first at The Baltimore Sun and again later on The Wire. Simon and frequent collaborator George Pelecanos reunited to create original series The Deuce. The drama about the New York porn industry in the 1970s and 1980s stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and co-producer James Franco, and aired from 2017 to 2019. Simon's next series, The Plot Against America, debuted in 2020.
Early life and education
Simon was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy Simon (née Ligeti), a homemaker, and Bernard Simon, a former journalist and then public relations director for B'nai B'rith for 20 years. Simon was raised in a Jewish family, and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. His family roots are in Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and Slovakia (his maternal grandfather had changed his surname from "Leibowitz" to "Ligeti"). He has a brother, Gary Simon, and a sister, Linda Evans, who died in 1990.
In March 1977, when Simon was still in high school, Simon's father was one of a group of over 140 people held hostage (and later released) in Washington, D.C. by former national secretary of the Nation of Islam Hamaas Abdul Khaalis in the Hanafi Siege.
Simon graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and wrote for the school newspaper, The Tattler. In 1983, he graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at college he wrote and was Editor for The Diamondback, and became friends with contemporary David Mills.
Career
Journalism
Upon leaving college, Simon worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995. Simon was hired by the Baltimore Sun for a piece he wrote about Lefty Driesell, who was then the men's basketball coach at the University of Maryland. Driesell had been extremely frustrated that one of his players was suspended from playing for sexual impropriety and called the victim, threatening to destroy her reputation if she did not withdraw her complaint. This was all done while the university administration was listening to the call, but they did nothing. Lefty Driesell was later given a 5-year contract and, in 2018, he was inducted into the ACC Hall of Fame.
Simon spent most of his career covering the crime beat. A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work". Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by The Washington Posts coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience.
Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts. He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room. He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel. "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon.
In 1988, disillusioned, Simon took a year's leave to go into the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit to write a book.
Book
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Simon's leave of absence from The Sun resulted in his first book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The book was based on his experiences shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988. The idea came from a conversation on Christmas Eve 1985 in the unit office, where Det. Bill Lansey told him, "If someone just wrote down what happens in this place for one year, they'd have a goddamn book." Simon approached the police department and the editors of the paper to receive approval. The detectives were initially slow to accept him, but he persevered in an attempt to "seem … like part of the furniture". However, he soon ingratiated himself with the detectives, saying in the closing notes of the book, "I shared with the detectives a year's worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof." During one instance, Simon even assisted with an arrest. Two detectives Simon was riding with pulled their car to a curb to apprehend two suspects, but Detective Dave Brown got his trenchcoat caught in a seat belt when he tried to exit the car. Brown told Simon to assist Detective Terry McLarney himself, and Simon helped apprehend and search one of the suspects.
The book won the 1992 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book. The Associated Press called it "a true-crime classic". The Library Journal also highly recommended it, and Newsday described it as "one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written". Simon credits his time researching the book as altering his writing style and informing later work. He learned to be more patient in research and writing, and said a key lesson was not promoting himself but concentrating on his subjects. Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that Homicide was not traditional journalism. "I felt Homicide the book and The Corner were not traditional journalism in the sense of coming from some artificially omniscient, objective point of view," said Simon. "They're immersed in the respective cultures that they cover in a way that traditional journalism often isn't."
Television
Homicide: Life on the Street
The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest. Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers. The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.
Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise. He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun". The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode. Simon also received Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2010.
Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full-time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2" and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein). For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine" and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein). He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth-season premiere "Blood Ties" (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth-season episodes "Full Court Press" and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura). He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin), "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura) and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer). Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution" and "Sideshow: Part 2". Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray". Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).
Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book. He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job. Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.
The Corner
In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner. He took a second leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun in 1993 to research the project. Simon became close to one of his subjects, drug addict Gary McCullough, and was devastated by his death while he was writing the project. Simon says that he approached the research with the abstract idea that his subjects may die because of their addictions but it was not possible to fully prepare for the reality. He remains grateful to his subjects saying "This involved people's whole lives, there's no privacy in it. That was an enormous gift which many, many people gave us. Even the most functional were at war with themselves. But they were not foolish people. And they made that choice."
The Corner was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. Simon again returned to his journalism career after finishing the book but felt further changed by his experiences. He said he "was less enamored of the braggadocio, all that big, we're-really-having-an-impact talk" and no longer believed that they were making a difference; he left his job at The Sun within a year for work on NBC's Homicide.
Soon after Homicide concluded Simon co-wrote (with David Mills) and produced The Corner as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO. The show received three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie, for Simon and Mills.
The Wire
Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire. Many of The Wires characters and incidents also came from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. After the fourth season, Simon signed on to produce the fifth and final season of The Wire, which focused on the role of mass media in society.
Again he worked with Ed Burns on creating the show. Originally they set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. During this time Burns had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."
They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot after ordering a further two scripts to see how the series would progress. Carolyn Strauss, the president of HBO entertainment, has said that Simon's argument that the most subversive thing HBO could do was invade the networks' "backyard" of police procedurals helped to persuade them.
The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working-class America through examination of the city ports. The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." For the fourth season Simon again turned to Burns' experience, this time his second career as a Baltimore public school teacher in examining the theme of education. The fifth season looked at the media, as well as continuing themes such as politics from earlier seasons.
Simon was reunited with his The Corner producers Robert F. Colesberry and Nina K. Noble on The Wire. Simon credits Colesberry for achieving the show's realistic visual feel because of his experience as a director. They recruited Homicide star and director Clark Johnson to helm the pilot episode. The completed pilot was given to HBO in November 2001. Johnson returned to direct the second episode when the show was picked up, and would direct the series finale as well, in addition to starring in the fifth season.
Simon approached acclaimed crime fiction authors to write for The Wire. He was recommended the work of George Pelecanos by a colleague while working at the Baltimore Sun because of similarities between their writing. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, attendance at the University of Maryland and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor." Simon did not read Pelecanos initially because of territorial prejudice; Pelecanos is from Washington. Once Simon received further recommendations including one from his wife Laura Lippman he tried Pelecanos' novel The Sweet Forever and changed his mind. He sought out Pelecanos when recruiting writers for The Wire. The two met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos became a regular writer and later a producer for the show's second and third seasons. Simon and Pelecanos collaborated to write the episode "Middle Ground" which received the show's first Emmy nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Pelecanos left the production staff following the third season to focus on his next novel; Simon has commented that he missed having him working on the show full-time but was pleased that he continued to write for them and was a fan of the resultant book The Night Gardener. Similar to Simon's own experience in researching Homicide Pelecanos spent time embedded with the Washington DC homicide unit to research the book.
Crime novelist Dennis Lehane has also written for the series starting with the third season. Lehane has commented that he was impressed by Simon and Burns' ear for authentic street slang.
Eric Overmyer was brought in to fill the role of Pelecanos as a full-time writer producer. He had previously worked with Simon on Homicide where the two became friends. Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing particularly in synthesizing the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads.
Simon and his writing staff were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season. Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-" which received the show's second Emmy nomination, again in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Simon has stated that he finds working with HBO more comfortable than his experiences with NBC on Homicide and that HBO is able to allow greater creative control because it is dependent on subscribers rather than on viewing figures. He has said that he feels unable to return to network television because he felt pressure to compromise storytelling for audience satisfaction.
Generation Kill
Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill for HBO with Ed Burns. They again worked with Nina Noble as a producer. The miniseries is an adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. It relates the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as experienced by 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and their embedded reporter, Evan Wright. Simon and Burns worked with Wright in adapting his book into the series.
Treme
Simon collaborated with Eric Overmyer again on Treme, a project about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans. Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans, and Simon believed his experience would be valuable in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories. Simon also consulted with New Orleans natives Donald Harrison Jr., Kermit Ruffins, and Davis Rogan while developing the series. The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood, and is smaller in scope than The Wire. The series premiered on April 11, 2010, on HBO and ran for four seasons.
Treme is named after the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans that is home to many of the city's musicians. Simon stated that the series would explore beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm. One of the principal characters in the pilot script runs a restaurant. The series was filmed on location and was expected to provide a boost to the New Orleans economy. Simon's casting of the show mirrored that of The Wire in using local actors wherever possible. Wendell Pierce, who had previously played Bunk Moreland on The Wire, stars in the series. Clarke Peters, also of The Wire, is another series regular. Many other stars of The Wire have appeared in Treme, these include Steve Earle, Jim True-Frost, James Ransone, and Anwan Glover.
Show Me a Hero
In 2014, HBO greenlit production for Simon's next project Show Me a Hero, a six-hour miniseries co-written with William F. Zorzi and the episodes directed by Academy Award-winner Paul Haggis. The miniseries is an adaptation of the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin and tells the story of Nick Wasicsko, the youngest big-city mayor in the country who is thrust into racial controversy when a federal court orders to build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of Yonkers, New York. Oscar Isaac stars as Wasicsko and leads a cast, which includes Catherine Keener, Jim Belushi, Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder. The miniseries premiered on August 16, 2015.
The Deuce
The Deuce is a 2017 drama television series set in Times Square, New York focusing on the rise of the porn industry in the 1970s-80s. Created and written by Simon along with frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, the series pilot began shooting in October 2015. It was picked up to series in January 2016. It premiered on September 10, 2017, and is broadcast by HBO in the United States.
The Deuce tells the story of the legalization and ensuing rise of the porn industry in New York beginning in the 1970s and its ongoing rise through the mid-1980s. Themes explored include the rise of HIV, the violence of the drug epidemic and the resulting real estate booms and busts that coincided with the change.
The Plot Against America
An adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, The Plot Against America is an alternate history told through the eyes of a working-class Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey; as they watch the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, an aviator-hero and xenophobic populist, who becomes president and turns the nation toward fascism. The six-part miniseries premiered on March 16, 2020, on HBO.
Projects in developmentParting the Waters: With Taylor Branch, James McBride, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Eric Overmyer. About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Taylor Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project was to be produced by Oprah Winfrey, but was shelved.The Avenue: A book with William F. Zorzi Jr., on the Baltimore drug epidemic from 1951 to late 1980sThe Good Friday Plot: Miniseries about Abraham Lincoln based upon Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson and American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael W. Kauffman.Capitol Hill: A collaboration with Carl Bernstein set in Capitol Hill, it examines partisanship and the role money plays in influencing national governance. The series was ordered to pilot by HBO in 2015 but has not received a subsequent season order.Legacy of Ashes: On the Central Intelligence Agency, based on the 2007 book Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. The show was taken to the BBC and would have had Anthony Bourdain on the writing staff.The Pogues: Musical project with the help of the late Philip Chevron in development at The Public Theater in New York City, with Laura Lippman and George PelecanosA Dry Run: The Lincolns in Spain: A historical miniseries set during the Spanish Civil War about the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Battalions, which were composed of volunteers from the United States who wanted to help the Spanish Republic overcome fascism. Mark Johnson will be the series producer and Mediapro will be the series' production company.
Writing process
Simon is known for his realistic dialogue and journalistic approach to writing. He says that authenticity is paramount and that he writes not with a general audience in mind but with the opinions of his subjects as his priority. He has described his extensive use of real anecdotes and characters in his writing as "stealing life".
In a talk that Simon gave to a live audience in April 2007 at the Creative Alliance's storytelling series, Simon disclosed that he had started writing for revenge against John Carroll and Bill Marimow, the two most senior editors at The Baltimore Sun when Simon was a reporter at the paper. Simon said he had watched Carroll and Marimow "single-handedly destroy" the newspaper and that he spent over ten years trying to get back at them.
Anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were fucked up, wrong, and that I was the fucking center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.
One of the actions Simon took was to name a character in The Wire after Marimow and make the character "a repellent police-department toady." Carroll left The Baltimore Sun to become editor at the Los Angeles Times and resigned in 2005 after budget cuts were announced. "He stands up like a [bleeping] hero, takes a bullet," said Simon. In 2006 Marimow was diagnosed with prostate cancer, something that Simon said "took the edge off" his grudge. Carroll and Marimow "were fuel for 10 years of my life. ... And now, I got nothing," Simon said.
When asked about these comments, Simon said that he had spoken with "some hyperbole and, I hope, comic effect", adding that his basic viewpoint was: "that simple revenge is both empty and beside the point and that a good story carefully told has to speak to larger themes. You do not tell an ornate, careful story over ten hours of HBO airtime merely to bust on any given soul."
Views on journalism
In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism. "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon. "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to effect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."
While testifying at a 2009 Senate hearing regarding the future of journalism in America, Simon indicted what he saw as poor online journalism, calling the phrase citizen journalist "Orwellian to [his] ears." Simon ended his testimony by declaring, "I don't think anything can be done to save high-end journalism."
Political views
Simon has described himself as a social democrat, broadly supporting the existence of capitalism while opposing "raw, unencumbered capitalism, absent any social framework, absent any sense of community, without regard to the weakest and most vulnerable classes in society", which he described as "a recipe for needless pain, needless human waste, (and) needless tragedy". He has criticized the idea of trickle-down economics.
In 2013, Simon compared the global surveillance disclosures uncovered by Edward Snowden to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to record the numbers dialed from all pay phones. The city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to record the dialed numbers. The placement of the payphone number recorders formed the basis of The Wires first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the surveillance disclosures is a "faux scandal."
During a November 2013 speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, he said that America has become "a horror show" of savage inequality as a result of capitalism run amok, and that "unless we reverse course, the average human being is worthless on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism."
Simon has also spoken out publicly against crime journalist Kevin Deutsch, disputing the portrayal of Baltimore's illegal drug trade in Deutsch's book, Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire. Simon has described the book as "a wholesale fabrication."
During the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Simon praised Bernie Sanders for "rehabilitating and normalizing the term socialist back into American public life", but opposed some attacks against Hillary Clinton which he felt focused on her presumed motives rather than the substance of policies.
Personal life
In 1991, Simon was married to graphic artist Kayle Tucker. They had a son. The marriage ended in divorce.
In 2006, Simon married best-selling Baltimore novelist and former Sun reporter Laura Lippman in a ceremony officiated by John Waters. They have a daughter, who was born in 2010.
Simon's nephew, Jason Simon, is a guitarist and vocalist for the psychedelic rock band Dead Meadow. The band was mentioned in an episode of The Wire.
Simon was the 2012 commencement speaker for the Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the speaker for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduation.
In 2019, Simon joined a host of other writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA after failing to come to an agreement on their "Code of Conduct". Simon's statement to the writers union was widely circulated. He had previously led the rallying cry about the unfair practices of packaging by the major talent agencies.
Works and publications
Commentary
Non-fiction books
Filmography
Producer
Writer
References
Further reading
External links
David Simon's blog.
1960 births
American crime fiction writers
Jewish American journalists
American non-fiction crime writers
American newspaper reporters and correspondents
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American television producers
American television writers
Anthony Award winners
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School alumni
Drug policy reform activists
Edgar Award winners
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
American male television writers
Maryland Democrats
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Showrunners
The Baltimore Sun people
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Writers from Baltimore
Novelists from Maryland
American male non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
People from Bethesda, Maryland
21st-century American Jews | true | [
"Poppius journalistskola is Scandinavia's oldest journalism school. The school was founded in 1947 in Stockholm by the journalist and editor Set Poppius who had a long working life of experience in the field of journalism.\n\nThe school was founded during a period when the earlier volunteer system had stopped working and before state funded journalism schools started in the early 1960s. It was for a long time the only private journalism school in the entire Nordic region; only Germany and the USA at that time had similar private schools. Although there was a lack of educated journalists there was initial hesitation to the Poppius initiative, due to a belief that journalism could only be learnt through experience, not taught.\n\nSet Poppius started the school with his wife Ebba. Set was the school manager and teacher while his wife was responsible for the school's finances. The school soon developed a good reputation amongst journalists, and many praised the school such as Majgull Axelsson, Caroline Älvebrink Calais, Beppe Wolgers, Svante Foerster, Carl Otto Werkelid, Malou von Sivers, Mona Krantz, Hans Nestius, Mats Lundegård, Sten Hedman, Magdalena Ribbing, Kristin Kaspersen, Fredrik Lindström and Carolina Neurath.\n\nSet Poppius died in 1972 and Ebba Poppius ran the school for a few more years. The study school Vuxenskolan operated the school between 1974 and 1986. The school today is run by a non profit foundation and is financed solely by student tuition fees.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Poppius, Official website\n\nSchools in Sweden\nEducational institutions established in 1947\n1947 establishments in Sweden\nJournalism schools in Europe\nSwedish journalism organizations",
"Louis Weitzenkorn (May 28, 1893 – February 7, 1943) was an American writer and newspaper editor. He wrote a play about journalism, Five Star Final, that became a hit on Broadway in 1931. It was adapted as a movie, and Weitzenkorn subsequently wrote several screenplays.\n\nEarly life\nBorn in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in May 1893, Weitzenkorn attended the Pennsylvania Military College in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1912 he received a journalism degree from Columbia University.\n\nCareer\nIn 1914 Weitzenkorn became a reporter for the New-York Tribune. He subsequently wrote for The New York Times and the New York Call. In 1924 he became features editor for the New York World. In 1929 he took over as editor of the New York Evening Graphic, a popular but scandalous tabloid that was called the \"porno-Graphic\" by its critics.\n\nWhile still working as a journalist, Weitzenkorn began writing fiction. In 1929, his play First Mortgage had a brief run on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre, but closed after just four performances. His experience with journalism inspired him to write another play, Five Star Final. A. H. Woods produced it at the Cort Theater, where it opened on December 30, 1930. The play was a hit, running for six months with 175 performances. He subsequently wrote a third play, called And the Sun Goes Down.\n\nFive Star Final was adapted as a movie in 1931, and Weitzenkorn wrote several screenplays. These included 24 Hours (1931), Men of Chance (1931) and The Devil is Driving (1932). His last screenplay was King of the Newsboys, co-written with Peggy Thompson in 1938.\n\nPersonal life\nWeitzenkorn was married five times.\n\nOn the morning of February 7, 1943, Weitzenkorn's clothes caught fire as he was making a pot of coffee. His wife found him burned to death in a chair next to the stove.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1893 births\n1943 deaths\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nJewish American dramatists and playwrights\nColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni\nDeaths from fire in the United States\nWriters from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania\nWidener University alumni\nWriters from New York City\n20th-century American Jews"
]
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